Balance
by AbominableDante
Summary: Aya narrative about his life and how he plans to end it.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: **This started out as a sort of half-dream at eleven, right before I went to bed. This developed into something worth my while and a day later I was up to chapter five. I decided to post it, because I don't have any exceptional Weiss fics focusing on Weiss.

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**Disclaimers: **I don't own or claim to own anything even remotely Weiss-like. I haven't even seen the entire anime and most of this is guesswork out of pure fandom-induced knowledge. If anything is incorrect, please, fail to notify me. I repeat: FAIL TO NOTIFY ME. I really don't need to know. This is more a depressing flight of fantasy for the sheer joy of writing it (and for you, perhaps reading it) and I really don't claim that anything in this fic isn't pure bullshit.

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**Warnings: **Bullshit as it is, I don't want some mother getting pissed off as me for somehow magically teleporting to her house and shoving this into her child's hands. Yes, there is drugs, suicide, yaoi (gay) sex or referrals to yaoi (gay) sex, melodrama, themes of death, depression, violence, swearing, and a little OC-ing, though I hope not too much. If there's other warning that should be put here that I somehow missed, feel free not to worry about it. Just don't be a twelve-year-old and tell me I'm being gross, because they gives me every right to tear right into you and reduce you to tears.

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**Other comments: **Please, Enjoy.

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**1**

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It didn't start like this right away. It was more of a slower spiral into the abyss I inhabit now. I wasn't always like this; I wasn't always some ice sculpture with the lovely shattered insides, not like the others would you to believe. I wasn't always some sad pill-popping freak with a sword and a death wish. That came after, after everything went to hell and back. That was after my entire life blew up, my reason for living got sucked into her own little mind game, when I was left with nothing.

I hadn't planned life like this, or rather, to end life like this. As appropriate as it seems now, I had never wanted any of this. Well, yes, I wanted revenge, I wanted my sister back, I got those. But my hands…my face…I can't even look at myself; I haven't been able to for years. I doubt I could recognize myself. I don't own a mirror and the only one in the bathroom was smashed in one of my rather rare fits. It doesn't matter, not the scabbed-over knuckles that still weep pain or my distorted face and those empty, unseeing eyes I sometimes see watching me from the other side of that mirror.

Like now, as I open the medicine cabinet, take down my pills and close the door again, I see those eyes, they see me. They see, know and accuse me. I'm such a coward, I can't even stand to shove the blame on others, but I can't live with myself now that I'm all that's left to hate. I pour a glass of water and go back to my bedroom, if it could be called that. The apartment I now own is so small I can barely breathe, but that won't be a problem much longer. I sit down on my futon and pop open the bottle, pour out a handful of little blue pills and set them on the nightstand beside me. I pick one up, place it on my tongue and swallow with one small mouthful of water. I check my watch, check my letters, and sit back to wait. There are two envelops on my nightstand, one addressed, naturally, to my sister, and the other to Kritiker. I had another one I sent to Youji, but I don't know if he got it.

I think I'd be happier if he didn't.

I sit back and I wait, check my watch again and take another pill. I can't take them all at once; I'll only vomit them up. I know; I've tried it before. I read too much to know how to do this right. I know a lot of horrible things; how to make a bomb, how to make my own poison, how to kill someone without getting sick, how to slip by blood diseases in a world full of AIDS and HIV and other crap flowing in the veins of the truly disgusting. I know how to bring back the living dead and how to break away from them, how to greet a lover and leave them without looking back, I know how to hack all kinds of systems, how to write one hell of a suicide note…

I should've got a job in counseling. I could've done some serious population control.

I should start at the beginning, because I'm starting to sounds pathetic.

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_Fin chapter 1_

_Please Review_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: **I'm trying to work quickly so that I can do my homework and keep up in school, so if this is really as choppy as it first seems, I'm sorry I'm distracted and I'll try my very best to improve.

Again, please enjoy.

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**2**

In the beginning, I remember only light. It was sort of pinkish colored and it smelled like cherry blossoms. The first house I remember was one outside Osaka, surrounded by cherry blossom trees. It was a traditional-style house with sliding walls made of paper and straw mats and low furniture. The table in the dining room was made of wood so dark it was black and the cushions around it were composted of bright silk my mother had handmade herself when she was a girl.

She was an American-born Japanese woman, with All-American idealisms but for one. As strong-willed as she was, she was fiercely dedicated to the family, both the little one she had created with my father and me, and my father's extended family. I remember she used to sing songs to me in English; it's where I learned it. Her voice was like the autumn wind, dry, almost reedy, but soft like the sound of withered leaves scattering on the stone walkways around the house. She always smelled of some kind of perfume I've now forgotten the name of. It never occurred to me to know it, but sometimes I smelled it on the American tourists who visited the Koneko, or even at the restaurant I work in now.

The wood floor of the porch was smooth, worn not by sandpaper, but many millions of steps, of feet like mine when as I learned to walk. I remember my father's laughter, so full of pride. He picked me up, swung me around, so happy. I was two. My mother was pregnant. I didn't know what they meant, it didn't show yet, but she had that certain 'mother' smell women get during those nine months.

I was nearly three when my sister was born, little Aya. At first I thought she looked freakishly unusual, as if something was wrong with her. I didn't want to be anywhere near her, as her strangeness frightened me. The way my parents talked to her and played with her, made me insanely jealous and for a brief time I hated her. She was six months old, I was three, when we left the house outside of Osaka to another, smaller house in the suburbs of Tokyo. My father had tried to explain it to me, but I was too angry to listen, angry I was leaving what I knew for that mystery life.

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We moved so my father could be closer to his new job. I didn't understand it and it was then when I grew attached to Aya. She was all I had left of the old house outside Osaka, she reminded me of the trees. I spent as much time as I could with her, and I stopped getting mad at my parents when they paid attention to her and not me. I was wrapped up in her life as well; she was the very center of mine. I decided I would always take care of her, that since I was her big brother, I had a duty to make sure she had the very best life in the entire world. Naturally, as a child, my perception was a little generalized, a bit too idealistic, but I've stuck to its principal from then to now.

When I started primary school, my mother was pregnant again. I didn't welcome the idea of a new addition to our household, since I had just adjusted to enough changes, but I said nothing. My mother looked tired more and more often, as if the swelling of her stomach was sucking the very life out of her. It frightened me, but I said nothing. I was taking more and more care of Aya in that time. I was there when Aya got up and took her first few steps toward me. It was a touching moment. It made me wonder if all big brothers got to do that.

The winter of my fifth year, my mother miscarried her baby. My parents were heartbroken and my mother slipped into a state of constant sadness. Her voice was solemn, monotone, and even her sweet smell was gone. She lost interest in the family and Aya's care was left almost entirely up to me. My father took more time off of work to care for her, but there was little we could've done for her. My mother went to therapy not long after the miscarriage and was sometimes gone for as long as a month.

I tried explaining it to Aya, but she didn't understand me. She would stay up all night crying for our mother while my father did his best to comfort her. I too stayed up late, not crying, but still terrified. What if my mother had gone and was never going to come back? What if she'd died of that sadness she carried? What if? What if?

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I had never been a very social boy, and because I was precocious and had grown up knowing how to please adults, the other children shunned me as a suck up to the teachers. With every high mark I received, the more vicious the spoken, or worse, silent insults seemed to get. The boys heard from their parents about my mother, called her crazy when I knew she wasn't, but I couldn't fight them, wouldn't fight them. My father never approved of fighting and I didn't want to disappoint him when he was trying so hard to keep our family together, to raise Aya and me virtually by himself.

I should be proud to say I never cried, but I'd be lying. I cried nearly every night. I missed my mother. I missed my family. I missed the old house outside of Osaka and what it symbolized for me, that precious peacefulness wrapped in cherry trees. My heart ached with loneliness until the point when not even being near Aya could comfort me. My father often asked why I had become so quiet, but I never gave him any indication about school fights or the social wars held between my classmates and me, all against one.

He heard it all from my teachers. I was furious when he told me he knew, but I said nothing, gave nothing up. I didn't want to disappoint him, I knew how hard he worked for us.

"You miss your mother, don't you, Ran?" he asked over the dinner table, reaching over to place his hand on mine, forcing me to set my chopsticks aside. I looked up at him, frowning so hard my nose was crinkling, trying not to let him see my eyes well up with tears.

"I miss her too," he admitted, and somehow that shocked me, got me to look at him despite my welling eyes. "Would you like to go and visit her with me the next time I go? We can hire a babysitter for Aya. Would you like that?"

Me? He was asking me what I wanted? I was confused; no one asked me what I wanted. It wasn't that they didn't care, they just never thought of it. I had made a point of my life to not hassle anyone when I could, to make myself small, so small that I wouldn't create any more havoc in the world.

I nodded, feeling both happiness and the remnants of anger for him knowing. Aya dumped her rice on the table and swirled it around on the tabletop with her chubby fingers, laughing. My father and I looked at her and laughed for the first time in what seemed to be ages.

"Look at her form, those fingers. She'll be an artist one day," my father said. I just smiled. I picked my chopsticks up again and finished my supper.

When we went to visit my mother, it was the smell, not the sight, of the hospital wards the assaulted me. It was so bleached, so bone dry, so sterile that the synthetic flower fragrance was nearly painful. The white walls and white floors and white ceilings with little black dots were frightening and the sheer amount of sneakered feet was enough to make me cling to my father's hand as tightly as I could.

My mother was in a room on the very end of the hall, shared by a middle-aged woman who was sleeping. My mother was thinner than I remembered, and her hair had gray strands in it. She was pale and small and beautiful, and her eyes recognized me in a second. She got up and ran to hug me and I never wanted to let go.

"Ran, let me get up to hug Daddy," she said. I shook my head and clenched my fingers into her hair, still thick and strong, but also sterilized. "Ran-sweetie, let go."

My father never did get his hug, but he said it didn't matter, that he'd go back for another later that week. I held his hand on the way out, skipping, smiling. I had a drawing my mother had made of herself, done in pen and I promised her I'd draw one of Aya and me each for her. I would make it her New Year's present.

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I was six when my father signed me up for karate lessons. It surprised me that he had, since he had never liked the idea of fighting, but when I asked, he just smiled and would tell me the reason why when I was older, that in the mean time it would please him to know I did well in classes. I threw myself into karate and excelled. It was in my earliest classes that I met a boy, Ohkima Soichiro. Soichiro was also an outcast like myself, but he was far less reserved and preferred to act out more than practice. He was a skilled fighter, which was all that kept him from getting kicked out, and his antics often made me laugh. We soon became very close friends.

He was also from an unusual family life, as his father and mother were divorced and his mother had another husband, who he didn't like. Soichiro had two older sisters and a half brother on the way and since his sisters were teenagers, they and his mother often fought. He never wanted to go home and even had a couple of impromptu sleepovers just to get away. My father never complained, barely even mentioned it. If my father looked over his newspaper and saw the two of us trying to get more of Aya's rice into her mouth than on the table, he only laughed and flipped to the sports section.

Even though Soichiro and I went to different primary schools, we planned to go to junior high and high school together; since we were the only friend we really had and believed that we had to stick together. On Sundays, we would go to the park near my house and do sparring practice or homework. Even though we were alone at our schools, we didn't mind the other children's taunts so much now that we had one another to talk to.

The summers in the suburbs of Tokyo were hot, I remember. I remember the gnats that flew into my eyes and the sweet popsicles we ate on the front porch of our house, my father, Aya, Soichiro and I. I remember Aya's first words, 'Wan', 'mine', and 'Dada'. I remember my mother's return home from the hospital, so happy and full of love for us. She accepted Soichiro's presence as easily as my father had and lavished every love on him as she did the rest of us, quite possibly believing she could make up for her miscarriage and the mistakes of Soichiro's reluctant mother.

It was a good childhood, imperfect, but good. I would change only one thing, and that would be to visit the old house outside of Osaka once again. I missed the scent of cherry trees.

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Fin Chapter 2 

_Please Review_

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**To My Readers: **

**Narijima**You make very good points, but it's all for a reason that will be revealed soon enough. As for Aya/Ran breaking the holy fourth wall, I figured as a narrative, I'd try something new-ish for me. In the mean time, just think that Aya/Ran isn't attempting to address you, the reader, but to whatever audience he has in his head. Again, I'll probably get into that later.

Thank you for the review!


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: **I just had some brownies. Damn fine brownies.

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**3

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It's nearly twelve now, and my room is dark for the glow of numbers on my nightstand and the lights of Tokyo pouring into my window. I see shapes moving in the dark now as I struggle to stay awake, my eyes heavy. I hear a siren blare several stories below me, scream by my apartment complex and down the road to nothingness. I feel my resolve slip away with the sound.

My apartment smells like rot; rotting bodies, rotting vegetables in my refrigerator, rotting Chinese takeout on the kitchen counters. I'm such a slob, really, not at all meticulous. Musty used clothes on the floor, I don't remember when I last washed them, but I do remember my boss complaining about it a week ago. He'd taken me aside, assumed I cared.

I roll over and reach for the bottle again, pour out two more pills, swallow them with water. Some of the water slips out from between my lips and down my chin and stains my shirt in tiny drops like blood.

I see blood everywhere. I want it to stop, need it to stop. I'm going mad all over again that the only thing I smell and see and taste is blood, the harsh metallic chill like licking the side of a katana. The ritual horrors, consecrated for what? Murderers, the lot of them, those honored killers who tried to save our nation from the Westerners…

And yet, and yet we've submitted to them all the same. We are worse than them…I hate it all, I hate them all. I hate humanity. I hate myself.

I stumble out of bed and root through my refrigerator for a drink, anything to drink, sports drink or alcoholic, I don't care. I just need something to do, something to keep me awake long enough to make this irreversible. My fingers close around a bottle of beer, some cheap Japanese brand and I pop the cap on the edge of the counter, take a long drink, bite back an onrushing sob.

Ran, you stupid son of a bitch, what the hell are you doing? I can hear part of me screaming at all of this…

I take another swing of beer, anything to shut that voice up. What was it called, so long ago? Oh yes…conscience. Shut the hell up, Conscience

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_Fin Chapter 3   
_  
_Please Review

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_**To My Readers: **

**LilyMoon'sAlias: **I remember a time I used to do that. Thank you for the compliments and I hope you continue to enjoy this fic.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: **Warning, this is one very long chapter. Besides that, I hope y'all enjoy it.

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**4**

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When I was fourteen, I got my first kiss. It was clumsy, with a lot of bumping noses in a tight dark space we'd dug out of the janitor's closet. I remember not knowing what to do with my hands. Her name was Saki and she had bleached blonde hair and a round face that was both perfect and fat. She was indulgently kind, but for some reason, when I knew I should have, I couldn't feel anything for her. The kiss was an experiment, and I had failed it miserably.

For the past month or so, I'd had dreams about other boys. I wasn't a very sexually active kid, not when compared to other boys my age and their explicit, almost grotesque conversations on the subject. Soichiro was the only person I had talked to about my dreams and he suggested I set up dates with some girls of the various clichés and see what happened. If I got it on, I obviously wasn't gay, and there would be nothing to worry about, it would have all been a phase.

He never said anything about the chance that nothing happened, that I broke up with all of them or forced them to break up with me. I knew I was attractive, I was growing tall, thin and looked rather like my mother, but I made sure that whoever I broke up with would never speak to me again. I didn't like women and I didn't like how subservient they were to me, simply because my mother and sister were strong, independent women themselves. I didn't want someone to pine after me when I didn't call them at midnight to tell them I loved them. I didn't like lying or subliminal games.

When we'd finally stopped kissing, I actually felt physically ill. I wanted to brush my teeth until I gums bled and probably even more after that. Saki, though, didn't understand why I wanted to leave, to get out of there. She thought I was being shy.

"Come on, now, Ran. It's nothing at all. You brought a condom, right?"

I had to take a moment to swallow the idea of why I might ever need a condom around her and I gulped back the stomachful of bile that threatened to climb its way up my throat. I pulled away from her entirely and started grabbing for the door in the dark.

"You did bring a condom? Ran?"

"Where the hell is the door?"

"Ran…why are you trying to leave? It's just sex. Or are we going too fast? Usually you cute boys are just dying to get into my pants." A little laugh at this, her horrible giggle. Another tally against women; I really hated the way they laughed. It reminded me of a horse and I never in my life wanted to fuck a horse.

I started searching for the door more frantically.

"Ran." Her voice was harder now, demanding I stand still and look at her, give in a fuck her. I had no intention of doing so. I found the doorknob and gripped it like a lifeline.

"If you leave, then I won't talk to you again."

I've never believed in ultimatums and I always made a point to ignore them, or better yet, prove them wrong. This one, though, I was happy to oblige to. I twisted the knob and slid the door open, put a foot out.

"Ran-"

"Consider this a breakup."

I took my second step out and started walking to the exit. I needed to get out of the school, away from that tormented place and think, really think. I needed to get my issues straight. I needed to talk to Soichiro; he'd understood me through everything…I'd go to his house and wait for him to come home, even if took me hours.

"Stupid fucking fairy! You asshole!"

I had no idea what she was so mad about. I wasn't a great catch; I wasn't even a moderately okay catch. My mother was in a mental hospital for depression, I never saw my father, and my best friend was my only confidant and I barely even trusted him. I was sexually confused, emotionally unstable, I never slept and when I did, I always had nightmares about my problems. It seems like nothing in retrospect, when compared to my life now, but to a fourteen-year-old kid with no friends, all that could seem like the world was out to get them.

I went to Soichiro's house and sat down on the front porch to wait. I didn't touch my homework or try the doorbell to see if anyone answered. I knew his mother wasn't home and his sisters were in college or working now. The house was empty. He'd become a latch-key kid, like me. I spent the time waiting by listening to the sounds of children getting home from school, a half day for the junior high schoolers. I had to pick Aya up in two hours. I hoped Soichiro would get back before then.

Thirty minutes later, Soichiro came whistling down the street. When he saw me, he ran the rest of the way home and smiled at me until he saw my face. His expression faltered and he quickly opened the door for us. I immediately claimed a favored chair by the window in the front room and he sank down onto his couch.

"How'd it go with Saki?" he asked. I barely repressed a shutter at the memory.

"It didn't," I said quietly, holding back my fierceness, my rage. I hated myself for not being normal, for my body betraying me like this, at my mind for liking it.

"Oh."

"Oh? Is that all you've got to say?" I snapped, feeling bitter and righteous in my bitterness.

"Well, what should I say? Does this mean you're gay?" he asked, still calm. I liked him for that calmness. He was like a great big bear, so calm and warm, just mumbling his way through life, only shouting when he was really angry and knew he was right to be angry. He never got into fights, not like me. He kept me in line and I supposed that was why my father liked him around, thought he was good for me.

"Hell if I know. It's not like I have a whole lot of people to talk to about this. I certainly can't tell my father…god forbid I tell him. He still wants me to get married, have kids. He still doesn't think I'm serious about writing."

Soichiro sighed and popped open his can of soda, took a long sip and looked at me.

"He'll come around about the writing. He'll figure it out. In the mean time, though, we've got to figure out if you're gay or not."

"I didn't know it came with standardized tests," I growled. Soichiro barely flinched at my sarcasm, moved on with grace.

"Have you ever kissed a guy?"

I snorted, "No."

"But you dream about it, yeah?"

I reluctantly nodded, "Among other things…"

He raised an eyebrow. "Other things…Do I want to know?"

"Probably not, no, but I'm sure you already have a good idea."

He pulled a face and laughed, waving it away with a flick of his wrist. I felt myself flush, the heat rising in my face that I knew would turn me beet red with embarrassment.

"Maybe you should try it, having a boyfriend."

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow, my lips smirking up on one side.

"You volunteering for the position? Or are you going to be my agent in the gay dating world?"

"Please, the sarcasm isn't helping, Ran."

"Enlighten me, then. How am I supposed to get a boyfriend without my father, my sister or anyone else my family might know finding out? I hope you realize that my father knows a lot of people…a lot."

Soichiro shrugged and took another long drink of his soda. He was looking at me in that sick sort of plotting way he did when he had a great idea that would probably involve me doing something utterly shameful. I frowned at him, but he just smiled.

"I am not cross dressing and I am not going to act like some girl. I hate people who do that, even girls."

"I know. I was thinking, maybe, you could get them to come to you."

"Run that by me again?"

"Okay, so girls are flocking like sheep to you because, admit it, you're one hot piece of ass."

"Please don't speak of me like you would your girlfriend," I snapped tiredly. I wanted a huge pot of tea and all afternoon to let it make me feel better. Tea always made me feel better…

"Yeah, so you just turn down all the girls and eventually some guy will approach you. Maybe not in Junior High, but defiantly in High School. In the mean time, just lie low and hope to god those girls you dumped don't come after you."

I glared at him and got up, even though talking to him had made me feel a lot better. Not that I'd ever admit it, but he knew it all the same because I kept coming back to talk to him. That in and of itself was a feat few others had ever convinced me to do. I waved at me as I left.

"Oh, Ran?"

"What?"

"Don't tell your dad yet. He's got enough on his plate already, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. See you tomorrow."

"Later."

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"What's gay?" Aya asked, curious.

Obviously, she had been reading my journal again. I glared at her and all her twelve-year-old impishness. For a moment I hated her.

"Nothing," I snapped, but by that reaction I knew she'd figure out that it wasn't that at all.

"Tell me, Ran?"

"No."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Aya, you tell your friends how many times you went to the bathroom between dinner and bedtime, what makes you think I'm going to believe you now?"

She whined at me and tried to pull away to pout, but I clenched her hand tighter. I didn't want her going into the street and getting hit by a car because of me…or for any reason, actually. Mom was depressed enough as it was, to loose her daughter might kill her. The thought alone made me choke.

A few minutes of silence were just long enough to let me think.

"Ran?"

"It's when one boy likes another boy," I finally allotted, letting a lot of other, nastier details slither by. She was too young to know the details.

"Like? What kind of like?"

"Like like. Like how girls and boy like like each other," I explained, trying to grasp some kind of explanation she'd understand. 'Love' didn't hold much meaning to her but a word to describe how she felt about Mom, Dad and me, so to use it would've been pointless.

Her eyes got wide; not horrified, but fascinated by the sheer weirdness of it all. In her world, there were nuclear families with a mom, a dad and a couple of kids, maybe even pets. Because our mother was still alive and often was allowed to visit us or stay at home for a few weeks, she considered ours to be a basically normal family and I was never inclined to tell her otherwise.

"Like like? Really?"

"Yeah."

"Do you like like other boys, Ran?"

"I don't really like anyone, not like like."

"You don't like me?"

I smiled down at her and play-pushed her.

"No, I love you. I have to, you're my sister," I laughed. She laughed too and tried to push me back, her hands on my back as she tried to shove me forward down the street. She giggled.

After a few minutes of roughhousing, we went back to strolling home. I was feeling contemplative again.

"But really, you can't tell Dad."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know if I'm gay or not. I want to tell him myself. Promise you won't tell?"

"I promise."

I hold out my hand and she reached to shake it, but I frown at her.

"You know when you make a promise on a handshake that if you go back on it you'll shame your whole family, including Dad and Mom and me, right? You better mean it when you shake hands."

She smiles and takes my hand.

"I promise."

I shake her hand firmly and we continue walking home.

"Okay then…"

* * *

My father wasn't a saint, but he did his best. Even while I was usually left to take care of Aya, he always made sure we ate dinner together, either the meals Aya and I cooked up together or what he brought home from takeaway restaurants. It was unusual for him to leave us overnight for business trips or to take extended visits our mother, but he never stayed away too long for us to worry, and he called us every four hours or so, just to make sure we were okay anyway.

I always did my best to make him proud, even though he knew I didn't want to take after him and join in the banker's life, even though he didn't like the idea of my becoming a writer, but I never did anything to make him ashamed of me, or I made sure he'd never find out about it if I did. Soichiro often called me paranoid for the lengths at which I went to make sure my father didn't find out about certain things I'd done, but I just called it covering all my bases. He would laugh and shrug it off, having grown used to it over the years.

Aya, on the other hand, desperately wanted to follow in our father's footsteps, and while it seemed a little radical for a young Japanese woman to aspire to something as prestigious as my father's career, my father democratically accepted it. I was happy, as she'd let me off the hook of his expectations for carrying on the Fujimiya family. He suspected before I had even motioned it that I didn't enjoy company, entertain the idea of marriage and that I wouldn't even touch a baby if I didn't absolutely have to. It was he who confronted me about it, long before I knew I was ready to tell him anything.

"Ran, I'd like to talk to you about something," he said, so very calmly, as if he were talking about the headlines of the newspaper, but deep in my gut, I knew, I understood exactly when he wanted to talk to me about. I could feel the blood seep out of my face in one long horrifying rush and I had to set my bowl and chopsticks down to hide my shaking hands. I refused to look at him.

"Aya, why don't you go watch television for a while?" he suggested. Aya smiled and left the room and he shut the door behind her. Just him and me…alone…

I gripped my hand in my lap and still refused to look at him.

"Ran…"

"Yes, Father?"

"Ran, look up."

I obeyed, but only just. Something terrible was drawing my eyes to the floor. I tried not to look shamed, but I knew I was failing. I had totally lost my cool.

"I know you don't want to get married, you've said that before…"

Once, off handedly, over breakfast or some other casual meal. I hadn't known he'd remembered…What other minute details had he noticed? Was I too messy, too clean, too quiet, too unsociable? Did I walk like a girl without realizing it? Was it in my voice or my eyes or marked on my forehead?

"…Why is that?"

His voice was gentle, not at all prying. He was curious, yes, but I knew he'd let me get away without answering. He was giving me that opening so I would trust him, and trust him I did.

"I don't like girls."

"Don't like girls, as in, don't think you could love a girl?"

"Not like you and mother," I replied, cautiously meeting his eyes. He didn't smile, but he didn't look angry either. He sat back down in his chair and slid his hands over the thigh of his pant legs. I was waiting for him to get mad at me, to yell at me and throw me out and tell me he never wanted to see me again, that I was dead to him. I was waiting; my fingers were white from clenching, my nails slicing into my palms.

"I'm not going to get angry, Ran. Please tell me what's been bothering you?"

I looked up at him again, his face was fuzzy. I realized I was almost crying and I blinked the tears back, stuck my chin up to keep them in my head.

"I have dreams…about other boys…"

"Boys you know?"

"Sometimes…sometimes not…" I looked away, choking in fear. I wanted this to stop now, I wanted to stop talking, but I couldn't, "But never girls. I hear the other boys at school talking about it, their dreams, but I never have ones like that."

I paused, waited for him to jump in a hate me now, but he just waited, watched me even though I wouldn't look up.

"Is there something wrong with me? Something like mom, in my head?" I finally asked, "I want to be normal, like the other boys, but I'm not. I tried, but there's nothing. I just hate them, the girls…they're so…weak…what's wrong with me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you, Ran. This is normal for some people," he says quietly, in his calm, kind voice like sun-warmed bark of a tall, old tree. I look up at him and I think that was the first time I saw him not just as my father, but as a fellow human being. There were tiny wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and lines on his forehead, but he was smiling. His eyes were bright, and his hair was turning gray at the temples. The years had not been kind to him, but he looked so wise then, so welcoming that I couldn't help but smile back.

I wasn't afraid anymore.

I wasn't afraid.

I stopped smiling, but I didn't look away again.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Ran. It's okay. We still love you, your mother and I, no matter what you do. We aren't going to judge you on your choices."

I didn't dare tell him it wasn't a choice, that I had never been given the option, but I smiled anyway.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Then why ask me-"

"I just wanted to make sure you knew that. It was bothering you for a long time, wasn't it?"

I nod.

"Soichiro knows. I asked him about it. He suggested I try it out with girls…"

"I figured as much," my father laughed, then grew serious, "There aren't any grandchildren in for me, are there?"

I paled and shook my head quickly.

"I couldn't even kiss them. They grossed me out."

He laughed again. I knew everything was fine. I was gay and he didn't care. It would've shamed any number of people, but he honestly didn't care. He still loved me, he said, no matter what…

No matter what…

"Why don't you go watch television with Aya-chan, I'll clean up the dishes. It's my turn tonight."

I smiled, nodded to him and left.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 3_

_Please Review_


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes: **Later on I'll have something to say here, but in the mean time, I'm just posting. If you have questions, please put them in the form of reviews and I'll be happy to answer them. Thank you and please enjoy.

* * *

**5**

* * *

Dial the phone, I have no idea who I'm calling or why. I press the earpiece to my head and wait, breathe, wait…

Someone picks up; I can hear a little girl singing in the background. A man's voice, but still a boy's. I know this person, I know him.

"Hello?" the voice says.

I breathe, try to breathe, forget to breathe. Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

"Soichiro?" I ask, knowing how stupid I sound, how slurred my voice is, how much this is going to freak him out. This is going to blow his mind, no doubt.

"Can I help you?" he asks, his way of saying 'who the hell are you'.

"It's Ran."

A pause. I can hear his shock, his anger.

"I'm sorry, but Ran's dead. I don't know what sick joke this is, but you better stop it."

Or what, Soichiro, you're going to call the cops? You have no idea where I am. I smile, vicious.

"Yeah, you're right. It's sick," I agree, "But I have something he wanted me to give you, something to say, really."

"I'm hanging up now. Do not call here again."

"'I loved you, always did'," I say, trying not to gag on laughter. This is ironic, a dead man professing love for a man he doesn't know anymore. Or rather, a drunk, pill-popping maniac professing love for the ideal a little boy once stood for. Is there much difference?

Click.

He hung up. I smile even though I can feel something in me crack. It almost makes noise, it generates from my right femur, deep in the bone, so painful that I drop the phone and sink to the vinyl kitchen floor. I smile wider, reach for another pill, check my watch.

"Too little too late, all over again," I say and smile some more. Breathe.

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_Fin Chapter 5_

_Please Review_


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes: **The power just came back on after quite a windstorm. During that time, Da and I went on a walk to enjoy the freezing bitter wind and the leaves flying all over the place. I do so love wind…

Every season should be fall…

* * *

**6**

* * *

I got my first set of glasses in high school. I also got my first boyfriend, first failing grade (in science because I refused to dissect a frog on moral principal) and another foot added to my height. I towered over other boys, excelled in sports (joined the kendo and karate teams) and teased the girls who fluttered after me viciously, out of viciousness. Soichiro usually got the disappointed ones on the bounce back, but he never complained. He hadn't joined kendo, but stuck with karate and he helped me cheat through biology and chemistry classes.

My first boyfriend was named Endo Daisuke and his kissing was second only to one other boyfriend I'll get to later. He was also on Kendo team, a year my senior and vying for club presidency next year. He was flamboyantly gay and helped me out into the homosexual world that had apparently lived alongside everyone else, only a separate pair of eyes was needed to see it. Our foray didn't last long, though, as he was often checking out other boys and I wasn't interested in him so much as what he taught me. Even after we broke up, though, we stayed close friends.

My second year of high school was fairly uninteresting. It was normal, typical. No one dared try to haze me because I had a reputation of starting fights when almost entirely unprovoked and I had a lot of other rather dangerous friends. The kendo team was on my side and half the karate team were severely pro-gay. That, and the girls of the school would blacklist the hazers permanently, and no one wanted that.

It was my summer after my second year of high school that things happened. I was turning seventeen that summer, Aya fourteen, as our birthdays were only two months apart over the break. I still went to karate and kendo club meetings, but the rest of the summer I spent rereading my bookshelf of beaten classics novels. My birthday passed in a quiet haze as it usually did; with a small homemade cake and candles and my sister and my father singing to me. Soichiro had come over to play video games that day, but since he had a steady girlfriend, seeing his was scarce. What touched me the most, was that my mother spent the two months of summer out of the hospital so she could be home with us when Aya and I had our birthdays.

It was my mother who suggested we go to the summer festival, but when the date planned came around, she'd come down with a cold and Aya and I didn't like the idea of going without her. She told us to go anyway, even shoved our nicely boxed kimonos at us and told us to get dressed. My father nodded and said he'd take care of our mother, that we should go have fun.

Aya and I got changed, set a curfew and set out to the festival. I had enough money in my pocket to buy games for both of us. When Aya saw a pair of earrings she liked, something strange and contemporary and exactly her taste, she begged me to get them for her. It was her birthday, but I only had a little money, only enough to buy the earrings and no more for games. I asked her if that was okay with her and she said yes, so I bought the earrings.

"You're ears aren't even pierced yet," I laughed as she twirled around happily and thanked the seller as he handed me the gray keepsake box.

"I'll get them pierced then, and I'll wear them all the time. Oh, they're so pretty, Ran. Let me carry them?"

I handed her the box and she skipped her way through the rest of the festival, looking at games and prizes, but never asking to play any. She was happy with her earrings and in turn, that made me happy. At the set curfew, I took her arm and led her back home. We were laughing and talking as we walked, making jokes and mock-pushing one another when we turned the corner to our street.

There was a strange car on the other side of our street and I could faintly see the outline of a person inside, but I thought nothing of it. A second later, I heard a huge boom, Aya's scream and I turned around to see our house, _our_ house in flames, the roof blown completely away with most of the walls, the shrapnel still raining down from the sky. Aya was still screaming and ran toward the house. I tried to grab for her and hold her back, shouted after her, but she was out of reach.

The car flipped on its headlights and Aya stopped right in their path, shocked still with grief and fear like a deer. I screamed at her to move, even started running to shove her out of the way, but the car was faster, gunned it and with a short scream and a thump, my sister flew over the hood of the car, landing in a silent heap in our driveway. The car stopped and the man who'd been driving it looked around to make sure she was down.

I recognized his face, a man who had worked with my father. His name was Takatori and he was a wealthy man aspiring to become a politician. I gaped at him, too shocked to do anything more but watch as he zoomed away in his car. The moment he turned the corner, I ran for Aya, checked her pulse, her breathing, her pulse again. I shook her shoulder, screamed her name, even smacked her face, but there was no reaction.

"Aya! This isn't funny…wake up! AYA! AYA!" I pleaded. I looked around me into the darkness of the street. "Someone help! Help! Please help!"

Moments later I was still desperately trying to get Aya to wake up when the authorities came. Apparently the noise had caught the attention of our neighbors and they had called the police, the fire brigade and an ambulance. I refused to let Aya out of my sight, even when the police tried to get me to stay behind and answer questions, but I only climbed into the back of the ambulance with my sister and clenched her hand the whole way to the hospital.

* * *

I have never liked hospitals, not when I was a child, certainly not when I was a teenager. My prolonged experience with them has quite possibly made me even bitterer about doctors and their charade than ever in my childhood. My sister was immediately whisked away into the Emergency rooms and I was likewise taken to a less hectic part of the hospital to patch up the small cuts on my face, hands and knees. I was given scrubs to replace my kimono, but I refused to let the kimono go, even though it was ripped where my knees had slid on the pavement. They sighed, made sure I wasn't in shock, and sent me to sit in the waiting room until I got word of my sister.

It was several tense hours before a doctor, a middle-aged woman, came to the waiting room. I felt my chest clench, hoping against all hope that she was here for me at the same time wishing she wasn't. She called for Fujimiya and I got to my feet. She looked at me, gave me a sad smile and had me follow her into the hallway.

"Have you eaten anything, Fujimiya-san?"

I flinched at the name. People called my father that…

"Tell me about Aya," I demanded quietly, my eyes hard against hers. I was at least a head taller than she, but I knew she wouldn't be intimidated. She was a strong woman, like my sister…like my mother…I could see it in the way she stood.

"Perhaps you would like to sit down…"

"My sister, please, I have to know now," I begged, my voice trembling.

She looked at me, took a deep breath, let it out. She looked at me again. I couldn't see her expression, though…my glasses had fallen off somewhere. For a brief second I panicked, knowing my glasses were gone, but my heart demanded I know about my sister.

"It doesn't look good," she said, "There are massive contusions to her head, a broken arm. Her femur was snapped and we suspect there was also severe damage to her spine. She's alive, yes, and she's stable. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of damage to any of her organs, but she has a very serious concussion. She slipped into a coma on the way here, we think."

A coma…I had no idea what a coma was. I was the kid who failed biology class because I wouldn't cut up frogs. I was the kid who didn't watch those surgery shows because they made me sick…

"She's going to be okay, though…she'll be okay, right?" I asked, desperate. I knew by the apologetic look on her face that I was so very, very wrong.

"We have to be very careful in these first few hours."

"Can I see her?"

"I'm afraid not right now. Is there someone you can call?"

I paused, scared. I knew that this wasn't some random act of violence, I could tell by Takatori's appearance. My family was targeted. I might've also been one of his to-be-victims. I feared for the lives of my friends and I shook my head swiftly.

"No. No one."

"Family members, friends…"

"No one. But I'm eighteen," I lied smoothly, surprising even myself. I wasn't typically a good liar, since I blushed with guilt whenever I tried, but she never even suspected. She nodded once, seriously, and sighed.

"Oh, before you go. We need you to take her things with you, if that would be all right?"

I nodded, wondering what things she meant. She told me to ask for Aya Fujimiya's things at the front desk and wished me a good night before she left, told me that I'd be able to visit Aya tomorrow afternoon, if everything went all right. I watched her go, hoping perhaps that she might give away where they were keeping Aya, but I knew she wouldn't be that stupid.

I went to the desk and asked for my sister's things and was handed a paper bag filled with her kimono, obi and socks. Her shoes had flown off when she was hit by the car. I searched around in the bag and found the little gray box with Aya's earrings inside. I looked at them and felt a little part of me die. I knew she wasn't waking up, not by the way the doctor looked at me, with so much pity.

I was alone…

Totally alone…

And I couldn't tell anyone because that might've given them away to whoever wanted to kill me and my family. I ducked into an empty patient's room on the quietest floor I could find and spent the rest of the night watching television, trying very hard not to think of what had just happened and why I was at a hospital pretending I wasn't crying.

* * *

I was wandering around the hospital first thing in the morning, exhausted since I hadn't slept, still in my scrubs because I had no other clothes but my torn kimono. I had hidden the bag in a storage area and I left the hospital to find some real clothes, my traditional wooden sandals uncomfortable as I walked, but they were all I had. I had my kimono in tow and I was hoping I could find a shop where I could trade it in for enough cash to get me a pair of jeans and a sweater. I could keep the scrubs shirt as a tee if I needed to, but I knew already that it was cold in that hospital and I really needed a sweater if I was going to be staying there for any amount of time.

I found a small shop and clomped my way inside. It was dusty, quiet, having just opened and it took me a long time to find the cashier, who was in the back trying to brew a cup of coffee. I quickly traded the kimono for jeans and a black sweater that was full of holes but also warm.

"You come from the hospital?" the man behind the counter asked. I just nodded.

"This is a nice kimono, worth more just jeans and a ratty old sweater like that. Is there anything you'd like to buy with the change?"

I shook my head. I needed the little money I could get to pay for food. I could only steal so much from the cafeteria before someone noticed…

Just as I was leaving, already changed into my new used clothes, my scrubs in a bag, the man stopped me and offered me a pair of relatively nice sneakers and some socks.

"For your shoes?"

I looked down at my sandals and then back at the sneakers. The socks would be wonderful…I sat down and took my sandals off. I quickly changed my shoes and thanked the man with a curt bow and left. I had a little money in my pocket, but I had no idea who I'd call, or where I'd go.

I wandered through the small area around the hospital, just long enough to make it look like I had left the night before and was coming back that afternoon as directed. I asked the woman at the front desk for the doctor who was looking after my sister and I was directed to the sixth floor. I met the same doctor from the night before in the elevator.

"Hello, Fujimiya-san."

"Doctor," I greeted back, though my voice was flat. I stared straight ahead at the doors, the wood paneling of it making me feel claustrophobic.

"Your sister has been stable for the past few hours."

"She's still in a coma," I said. I didn't guess. I knew. I already knew, but I didn't know what to do.

"Yes."

I sighed and the elevator doors opened. I let the doctor led me to Aya's room and I hovered briefly in the doorway like a specter. The doctor was talking, but I ignored her, my eyes only on Aya's form in the bed. She was so thin and drawn, but she looked as if she was only sleeping now, the soft beep of her heartbeat electronic in my ears. I asked the doctor to leave and I sat down on the side of Aya's bed I reached into my jeans pocket and took out the gray keepsake box with her earrings.

I opened the box and pulled out the earrings, placed one in Aya's upturned palm and closed her fingers around it. The second earring I opened up and pressed against the lobe of my ear, hesitated, took it away. I looked at her face, wondering if she could wake up if I called her.

I tried, but there was no response. I knew somewhere deep inside my belly that she wasn't coming back, that she was already too far gone. It hurt, knowing that, and I could've done anything to stop the pain. I grit my teeth and fingered the earring in my hand again.

"I'll get them for this, Aya. I'll get revenge for Mom and Dad and for you. I'll make them pay," I whispered to her, clenching her earring in my hand, "I'll hold your place in the world for you, Aya, I'll keep that open for you whenever you want to come back. I promise; I'll take care of you."

I lifted the earring to my ear again, took a deep breath and jammed it in through the flesh before clipping it closed again. I choked at the pain, dipped my fingers in the blood that ran down my neck with curiosity.

"I swear by blood, I'll protect you and I'll kill them."

"You won't be able to do that all by yourself," a voice stated from across the room. I whipped around to see where it had come from and glowered into the corner of the room where a woman (I could tell from her voice) sat just out of my eyesight. She was a fuzzy, black-haired blob to me since I still lacked glasses, but I could hear her smile.

"Who're you? What do you want?" I demanded, instantly suspicious.

"My name is Queen and I'm a spokesperson for a corporation called Kritiker."

I had never heard of Kritiker and I really didn't trust someone who had the name of a former British rock band. She could tell from my frown and instantly went into her sales pitch.

"We can help you fight Takatori. Give you enough money to pay for your sister's bills. No doubt those will be rolling in soon enough, not to mention housing for you…"

"Why would you want to fight Takatori?"

"Let's just say the Takatori family and Kritiker have been…longstanding enemies."

"No."

"Now let's not jump to conclusions, Fujimiya-san…We're more than willing to help you…"

"Go away," I snapped, "Go the hell away!"

Queen sighed and got up to leave. She dropped a business card on the bedspread and smiled at me, close enough now that I could see her face.

"Call me, if you reconsider."

And she was gone.

* * *

I stayed longer and longer in the hospital, avoiding meetings with my family's lawyer to settle inheritance, in denial as to why I was there at all. I never slept, never spoke, just wandered around the hospital until someone who had been watching me took me aside and asked me if I was lost. I didn't answer him and he took me down to the front desk. I leaned on the tabletop and avoided eye contact with the nurse behind the counter.

"I'd like to check myself in," I said softly.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?"

"I'd like to go to the mental ward."

She looked at me, squinting as if she had seen me once before but couldn't remember from where. Then it hit her, from the night of the explosion.

"You're Fujimiya-san! Oh my God, yes, of course, right away. Please, wait right over there and I'll have someone come down to escort you right away."

I nodded and sat down to wait, fingering the smooth metal earring that my flesh was still swelling against.

* * *

My days got longer, my nights stopped bothering me. I never slept, never ate, never spoke. Once or twice I was sent to a psychiatrist, but they deemed my lack of responsiveness to shock value of my family dying. It was enough to give me a free ride for a while, but I knew my time was almost up. My family's lawyer was visiting me every day and finally I just agreed to whatever he said just to shut him up. I had him write up another will that if I died for any reason, Aya would get everything.

He had looked at me strangely, but said nothing, agreeing that it was the best choice. I stole his gold-plated pen when he left and that night I decided to slit my wrists. I slipped of to the bathrooms and smashed the pen on the side of a sink, dumped the pieces that were useless and tested the sharp edge of the gold plate. So much for keeping a place in the world for Aya, but my priorities were confused with my mourning. I cut up from my wrists to my elbows and sat down in a bathtub to wait it out, watching the midnight moon pouring into the window and dripping down the sides of the tub to join me and my blood.

There was a shuffle in the corner and a flash of gold hair, then black hair and some quiet voices. The woman from before stepped into the light and knelt down beside the tub, her hand on my shoulder and pressed her lips close against my ear.

"Is this what you really want, Ran?" she asked, "Don't you want revenge?"

"I can't want both…I can't…" I whispered, "It hurts…" I sobbed softly and pressed my arms close around my chest.

"You have to take care of Aya-chan…At least come with us, find out how we can help you, use us. Please, Ran?"

I gulped and fought to keep my eyes open, shook my head to clear it and then nodded.

I had no where else to go. I was alone and in so much pain.

The blonde head moved out of the shadows and into my sight so he could pull me out of the tub, pry the broken pieces of pen from my now-stiffening fingers and haul me out of the bathroom. I couldn't stop staring at his face; he was so beautiful, the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, and obviously not Japanese. He was tall, and I knew his blonde hair was real. He smelled sweet, like some vaguely feminine cologne, and I pressed my face into his shoulder.

"Ironic that he tries to kill himself in a hospital. But I'm still getting blood on my coat; are you paying from dry cleaning?" the man joked, his tone dark but cheerful. He had the burr of a foreign tongue, but his Japanese was smooth, easy, as if he'd spoken it for years.

"Who're you?" I asked, my head muddled and tired now.

"You can call me Knight. I'm from Crashers."

"As if I knew what that was…"

* * *

I woke up in a bed that didn't smell like hospital sheets. In fact, I didn't think I was even in the hospital anymore. I tried to sit up in bed, but I felt he world shift dizzily and I lay back down in a hurry to hold back the bile in my stomach.

"Sleeping beauty awakes!" some gruff voice said somewhere to the side of me, "Though I can't say if he'll black out again or not."

A scruffy-looking man leaned over me and smiled, and a second later he was joined by the same blonde man from the night before. They both smiled at me and I found it unnerving.

"Welcome to Crashers," the blonde, Knight, said, "Once you recover you'll be joining our ranks."

I managed to sit up again and frowning at them with slight confusion, the pieces of the night before coming back to me like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Wait, what?"

They just smiled again.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 6_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Ok. As a heads up, I'm mostly guessing all of this. I have not seen any of the Crashers time period (or much else of Weiss, for that matter), so if this doesn't work out, please bear with me.

Thank you for your patience.

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**LilyMoon'sAlias**I hope you enjoy this to the end. Thank you.

**xKokurox**I'm not worried about the stalking, since I have one more reader for my fics and one more reviewer, which always makes a review whore like me happy. Indeed, it's nice you're enjoying this fic as much as the Farfie ones. It's flattering you enjoy my work.

Supposed to write fics on the other characters? I didn't know there was a law…I'm Aya/Ran in a cowriting fic with a friend of mine (Oni-Baka, who hasn't updated in ages), so I'm using this fic as a means to get into character and mould it to my design. I wrote the Farfie fics form much the same reason…but then I realized how very much I enjoy Farfie's mind (or how I think of it) and sort of…kept…writing…(laughs). Either way, write what you want, because when you do, it's always the best stuff you have…or at least that's what I like to believe when I get my forced term papers in…

Ugh…college…my brain…exploding…with information…so good…cookie…

The Angsty Ran? Interesting title…maybe a spin off is in line…If I wasn't so damn tired maybe I'd write it now…

I got about two hours of sleep last night…I'm afraid of the dark and it's very, very dark in my house…

(BTW, I'm a fallen-away Catholic convert. But it's cool, I'm not too fond of their dogma either, thus explaining the 'fallen-away' part, even if it helped shape my idea of Farfie's mind…)


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes: **I'm so sorry for the long wait. I was busy with other stories, wrapping up the Farfarello arcs and stuff on top of school.

Eh, school…

So yesterday I decided I might as well get the rest of this up. After all, I wasn't letting this story sit for all these months gathering dust. No, I was writing in it. Actually, I have only one chapter left to write and I'm done, the story is that close to be complete.

* * *

**7**

* * *

I stay there on the kitchen floor for some time. I pinch myself every time I think I'm going to fall asleep. I think of Yuushi, of his blonde hair and his somber smile. I think of Crashers and how much fun we used to have, just living, just working. I never had that kind of fun living with Weiss. There was always some lingering stench of death that ruined everything that could've been fun.

The others in Weiss carried on well enough. Omi had been around death his entire life. I suppose he was immune as any of us could be. He was always so innocent, so trusting. It made me want to tear him apart for the trust in those eyes. I was jealous, I suppose. I was jealous of all of them, even Ken and his flock of brats. Even Yohji…

Especially Yohji…

Oh, God, Yohji…

I sigh and rest my head against the wall. He hadn't gotten the letter. I knew, somehow. He would've called. He would've demanded that I didn't do anything stupid.

Or maybe he just didn't care…

I smile.

I hope he didn't. He didn't deserve the shit I dragged him through. I hope he hates me, wishes me dead.

I close my eyes and sigh. It's been long enough. I can take another pill. I slowly find my feet and limp across my apartment to my nightstand. I reach for the bottle and knock out another piece of blue peace. I swallow and sit down on the bed, against the wall to wait.

It's been long enough.

I can hear my phone in the kitchen ringing. I almost get up to answer, but I'm tired. I stay where I am, curl around a pillow and watch the lights of my apartment fading into dark, listening to the answering machine click on, the whirr of a tape, Yohji's voice.

"Aya? Aya?!"

It's been long enough. I'm ready for the darkness.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 7_

_Please Review_


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes: **Please don't be mad. I made most of this up from fandom.

I'm sorry…(cries)

* * *

**8**

* * *

Crashers. 

Bishop, Knight, Pawn and Rook.

Or, if you were familiar with them; Shiradagi Reiichi, Honshou Yuushi, Uhyon Naru and Tanuma Masato. And I was to join their ranks, though I had no intention of following through on that promise. I was interesting in one thing and one thing only at the time, and I was simply waiting for them to turn their backs.

But they never did. While Reiichi was usually busy, the other three apparently took shifts watching me. It wasn't as oppressive as the hospital, but I knew because there was always someone nearby, always a helping hand in the kitchen when it was my turn to cook, someone camping out by the bathroom door, ready to break it down if I took too long. I was still on prescribed anti-depressants, but Masato had taken on the duty of hiding them, only passing one to me at breakfast to hold me over through the day.

My first month in the house wasn't lively. I was still recovering from my suicide attempt and coming to grips with my new lifestyle, so the group rarely ever let me leave the house. It was fine by me, since I had never lived in that particular part of Tokyo and was certain I would get lost in the crowds. The idea of going out terrified me, as if the way I had shamed myself was written on my face, as if they'd know. I'd have panic attacks when Yuushi tried to coax me into the car for check ups with a Kritiker psychiatrist.

It was after that first month, when my arms had healed to deep scars, that Reiichi asked me about doing something, anything to get me out of the house and ready for work. I said I had taken kendo and karate most of my life and he set me up with a kendo tutor a week later. I had lost all my equipment in the explosion, but Reiichi told me I could borrow whatever I liked when I arrived at the dojo. I almost didn't go the first day, but Yuushi promised he'd stay the whole time if I liked. At the time I was quite taken with him, so he was usually the one to convince me to do anything. Masato was pretty convincing too, but only because he followed through on threats.

I sat in the car with my head pressed to the window, watching the world swirl by in a sick frenzy. I had just taken my daily anti-depressant on an empty stomach. It had helped to calm me down, but the quiet hallucinations weren't helping. I stumbled out of the car when we arrived and had to lean on Yuushi the way into the dojo. It was a traditional building, guarded by high walls and a thick wooden gate, but it reminded me of the house in Osaka, so I barely hesitated as I might've had it been a newer building. I kicked off my shoes and was inside in seconds flat, looking around with blatant curiosity. Yuushi watched me with an amused smile until a young man, a student, came out of a side door to help us.

"Welcome," the student said with a deep bow. His hakama rustled angrily when he moved and his hair was cropped short. For a fleeting moment I hoped I didn't have to cut my hair. I rather liked it long; I could hide under my bangs.

"Hello. He's a new student; Fujimiya," Yuushi said as a motioned to me. I bowed to the student and waited silently as Yuushi continued, "Your master said he would tutor him singularly?"

"Yes. Master Shion should be with you soon…"

"I'm already here," a voice said from an opposing door. Master Shion came out, hakama less crisp, but clean, his hair pulled back into a loose tail at the nape of his neck. He was middle aged, very young for a kendo master, but his eyes were wise and bright. He reminded me of my father for a moment, or how my father might've looked had he lived.

I must've shrunk away because Yuushi was pulling me out from behind him to bow and thank the man in advance for taking me on as a student. I couldn't speak, but I managed a stiff bow.

"Don't talk much, do you?" Master Shion observed in a less-than-amused voice.

"We told you about-" Yuushi began to explain, but the master cut him off with a look.

"It's no excuse to be rude. Speak up, boy."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I cleared my throat and bowed my head slightly.

"I'm sorry…Thank you for taking me as your student," I whispered, looking at his sandaled feet. I heard him grunt, but I still couldn't look at him.

"I suppose that's the best I'm going to get," the master said with a sigh, "All right then, training begins now. Hiro-kun here will be your Sempai." He motioned to the young man who had greeted us. "Go and get changed and Hiro-kun will take you to the appropriate room."

I bowed again, gave Yuushi a brief, terrified look, and followed Hiro into a room in the back of the hall. He asked me my size, handed me a gi and left me to get changed. When I was finished, he took my casual clothes and set them in a storage cubby and led me out to a small training room. The floor was covered in mats and the sliding doors were flung open to let in the light and late summer air. We sat down to wait for the master to come, but we didn't speak. Hiro was constantly glancing toward me, at my face, my wrists, my thin feet or how tightly my belt was tied, but he said nothing about it. After looking at him in the entrance room, I hadn't dared meet his eyes. I was afraid he'd ask me what had happened.

Master Shion came in fifteen minutes later and sat down to ask me about my history in martial arts. How long I'd been in both kendo and karate, and what level I was up to. Little emotion reached his face, but since I wasn't trying to read his body language, I wasn't worried. I wasn't here to impress him; I was here because I had to be and to pass the time. Fighting had helped me not think in the past, and I was more than desperate to forget everything I held inside of me now.

"You and Hiro-kun will practice fighting so I can assess how much training you've retained."

I nodded, but I still wasn't ready when Hiro threw a boken at me. The wooden sword hit my in the head and dazed me for a second. I glared up at him, but said nothing as I got to my feet, sword in hand. I took a moment adjust my grip and waited for him to attack, but he simply waited. We stared at one another, him impassively watching me and me still glaring.

"Well, go on…" the master said. Hiro still didn't move, so I did. I swung a little wide, my grip faltering only slightly, but I met his sword with a large crack. I realized how weak my grip had become from my time off and was furious at my body for betraying me. He countered with a precise slice to my belly, but I just barely dodged and brought my sword up to block. He had me on the defensive in seconds, rolling and jumping away until my breath came in huge gasps and sweat poured down my back and forehead. In a moment's respite, I managed to swipe my hair out of my face and Hiro smirked at me.

"That's why I cut my hair," he laughed. I just frowned and attacked again.

We fought for was seemed like hours, but when the master finally told us to stop and I looked up at a clock over the door, it had only been a few minutes. My body ached and my lungs burned, but it was a good burn, a good pain. Hiro and I stumbled over to a bench for water and waited for the master to tell us what he thought.

"You're good," the master said softly, "You've been out of practice for a few months, right?"

I nodded, not sure what to make of his compliment.

"I can tell by your stance. Are you on medications?"

I nodded again.

"Stop them, they throw your balance. Come by here every day and we can get you up to Hiro's skill in a month. Is there anything specific you want to train for?"

"Sword," I told him softly, "I want a real sword."

He gave me a quizzical look.

"I don't like guns but Shirasagi-san says I have to learn how to protect myself." I was lying, Reiichi had said no such thing, but this was for me. I still wanted very much to kill Takatori for what he'd done to my family and I really didn't like guns. I didn't know if I could take the gore that accompanied wielding a katana, but I'd learn. The time for being squeamish was over.

When I got home that night, all thoughts of suicide had left and I was more than ready to fulfill my promise of keeping Aya's place in the world. Naru asked me about my day after he'd arrived home from school, and for once I answered his questions. Usually I just grunted. He was delighted with my interest, glad I had something to work for and told me so as he helped me make lunch. After he almost set the rice for the onigiri on fire, though, I ordered him to leave and send Masako instead.

* * *

Living with four other men was what I imagine living in a fraternity is like. There was no initiation for me, as I wasn't officially a working member, but I had been assured I had one to look forward to when I started following them on cases. In the mean time, I was a lot like a mother for the four of them; cleaning up after them, making beds and cooking elaborate lunches and dinners to pass the time I didn't spend at the dojo. It was a quiet living in the house and I had the time to learn their peculiarities. 

Reiichi was fond of quietness and books. His bedroom doubled as his office and it was covered wall to wall with bookcases stuffed full of every subject and almost every language of the written word he could get his hands on. He let me borrow what I wanted, when I asked, and while he was a good leader and an incredibly clever man, he couldn't cook anything without making it taste like sandpaper. He hated it when someone tapped on a tabletop (which was a nervous habit of mine), but he never yelled, just gave me deadly glares.

Masako was messy and boisterous. He always had a cigarette hanging from his lips and day-old stubble on his chin, even when he'd shaved. He always said he'd quit smoking, but he never did. After a week or so, I had convinced him to smoke outside, to the relief of the others, who had the idea he'd set something on fire if he kept up his habit inside. He had a fondness for Chinese take out and because of that we had it at least once a week. He always took the breakfast shift, since I could barely move in the mornings, until he introduced me to coffee. I was nearly as addicted as he was in a month, but I took mine black while he poured enough sugar in to condense the drink into slop. He was always laughing at something and was always picking on Reiichi, just to get him going. He was rough and uncivilized, claimed he was American, but he was also the friendliest person I'd met in my entire life.

Yuushi never told me where he was from, but I suspected British since he accent carried the same lilt. Yuushi and I quickly grew close, I suppose because we both sensed a certain 'difference' that we held that the others did not. It's like that with some homosexual people. You just know. It helped that he was meticulous about his appearance, even if he was just lying around the house, and he was almost as authoritarian as I was when the house needed to be cleaned. He was the one who drove me anywhere I had to go and taught me to drive a car. He couldn't cook worth a damn and his tea was always some kind imported British crap.

Naru, I found out quickly, was still in high school and was extremely fond of fire. He was always in his room building bombs and I insisted on checking his backpack every time he went to school just in case. I was always terrified he would blow up the house, but he repeatedly assured me that he had been building bombs his entire life and that nothing bad would happen to us. I never felt reassured. He was full of questions, following me around and asking about my life before the explosion. I suppose he was trying to help me resolve any issues I had, but I got good at ignoring him. I also perfected the monosyllabic answers and an icy glare to ward him off. He was always smiling, always laughing and always fighting with Masako. They did it so often and so well it became a kind of comedy duo over the dinner table. I grew fond of him, as a kind of unconscious replacement of my sister. He was about her age and just as manic.

* * *

After a few weeks of training, I was bumped up to Hiro's level and began training with a real sword. It was heavier than the wooden boken I'd been using and my wrists were always sore. It was about that time that Reiichi told me I'd begin working with the Crashers at last. He gave me the basic instructions of reconnaissance work I'd start out with, but I still had a hard time. They gave me a tiny camera and sent me to a bar, a small, quiet bar on the edge of town to take in faces of people they'd be sending the killer groups in. At first it had surprised me that they even had killer groups, but it quickly surfaced that Kritiker was full of detailed, specific groups around the world, doing various secretive jobs. I silenced my peace-loving morals with the memory of what Takatori had done to my family and did my job. I sat at the bar, ignoring the drink in front of me and took notes and pictures of the people who came and went for an hour or two.

When the time was up, I left some money and slipped outside into the fall night, my coat whipping around my knees. Yuushi was waiting in his car a block away and had the heat running when I got in and handed him the napkins of notes and the camera. He looked them over and smiled.

"Good job. We're going to send team Weiss out for them."

I buckled myself in.

"I don't care, just go."

He just smiled at me again and put the car into drive.

"You'll care someday. This is for a good cause."

"Murder is never for a good cause," I countered quietly, though my tone was savage. I glared out the window, away from him.

"What about wanting to go after Takatori? That's for a good cause."

"Revenge isn't a good cause either. It's morally wrong."

"Eh, morals…morals are overrated."

I snapped my head around to stare at him, wondering what gave him the impression that morals were so awful.

"Without them, what have we to live for?" I asked, though I was sure I wasn't going to dislike his answer.

"We live for ourselves. People are morally corrupt, so why bother trying to reason it?"

"People may be corrupt, but that doesn't mean we have to be."

"Idealistic…you'll get over that in time."

"God, I hope not."

* * *

It was only a couple of months, but in that time I noticed certain small changes in Master Shion's movements, in his manner of speech, and in his eyes. He kept looking at me as if he suspected I was here for some other motive than training. When he spoke to me, he was careful in his words, forcing himself to be natural.

He was a horrible faker.

I was staying late, practicing katas with my boken when Master Shion appeared in the doorway, a silken-wrapped sword in his hands. He motioned me over and pulled the strings holding the silk together off.

The sword was beautiful, one of the finest works of art I'd ever seen. The black lacquer of the sheath glinted in the light and the dark sharkskin hilt glistened, smooth and perfect. Master Shion held the sword out to me, hilt toward me so I could pull the blade free. I just looked at him, confused.

"I've done something terrible, Ran," the master whispered. I frowned. I didn't understand. What could he have possibly done that was so horrible and why was he offering a sword to me?

"I've been working for someone I know you loathe, someone who destroyed your life. Knowingly working for him…"

Something like rage flared in my belly, and was quickly squashed by denial.

"I don't understand…"

"Take the sword." I shook my head and Shion glared at me. "Do it!"

I obeyed and the sword was a dead weight in my hands. The silver blade sang as it slid free and hung in the air between us. Shion knelt and pulled a short knife from inside of his sleeve. He opened the folds of his shirt, exposing his belly as he looked up at me.

"You know what Seppuku is, don't you Ran?"

I nodded. I'd read about it, seen it once or twice in old samurai movies, but no…he wasn't…

"I know it's confusing, but this is best. I betrayed you, a student, and dishonored myself. Please…would you do the honors?"

"Master…What have you done?" I finally gasped out. My hands were shaking and my head was telling my legs to run, but I couldn't. Somehow, that anger in my stomach was holding me there, against my will, focusing on the man before me.

"I fed information about you to Takatori. He knows you're out to kill him. It was wrong, but he paid me well, and then threatened my family. He killed them. They're dead…I have nothing left."

It would be a relief to kill him, I reasoned, like giving him peace. I barely knew this man, but I'd trusted him against all my better judgment. The rage flared again, painful this time. My fingers tightened around the blade.

"I trusted you," I whispered.

I'd talked to him, trained under him, listened to him…and he'd…sold it for money…It hurt me to think that. They'd killed his family, though, like they had killed mine…

"I won't," I said flatly, "I won't…"

"Let this be a lesson, Ran," Master Shion said, "The last I can give with some of my honor intact. You must know how to kill a man to kill Takatori. There are many men in the way of that goal and you'll have to kill them too. You can't pause to think or reason it, or you will be killed. Let me be the first on your way to Takatori. Kill him. Kill Takatori."

"Master…"

"Do it, Ran, without pause."

We watched one another for a moment, just long enough. I nodded and raised the sword. He smiled, briefly, and readied his knife. He pressed it deep and gasped.

"I'm sorry."

I brought the sword down on his neck and listened as the silence filled the room behind the gargled moan and slice of severed spine. A thump, a spurt of blood and the head rolled away, the body slumped away from me. Even still, I was soaked in blood, christened.

Tears were streaming down my face, but I still recovered the sheath of the sword and placed the katana home. I hugged the sheath to me and knelt next to the body of my master.

"Shion…Master…"

* * *

"I had no idea, we had no idea he was feeding information-"

"Shut up, Yuushi, please?" I said as I looked away into the night, the katana still clutched to my chest. He'd arrived just minutes later, got me cleaned up, called the right people to cover this up…We were going home now, but I knew it wouldn't be home for long.

I had killed. Crashers was a non-lethal unit and I had killed. I wasn't fit for Crashers anymore.

Yuushi fell into a kind of agitated silence on the rest of the way back and slammed the car door when we had arrived. I knew he was angry with me, with all of this, but there was nothing to be done, so I didn't offer him any apologies.

There was a woman sitting on the sofa when I walked in. Her hair was red and her skirt was too short and Masako was gleefully trying to offer her more sugar for her tea while Queen just glared at him. Queen turned to see me come in and she looked furious. The stranger woman also turned and watched me silently as I moved into the room and sat down in an empty chair. The others held back from me, as if murder was catching. Who knew, maybe it was.

"Fujimiya Ran?" the red-haired woman said, "My name is Manx."

Great, more code names…God…King needed to get real secretaries.

"I'm with the Kritiker's lethal units. I'm here to address this…"

"I'm moving, right? When and where?" I demanded gruffly. I didn't have time for long speeches. Takatori knew my name. I had to relocate and change my name, now.

Manx wasn't insulted, in fact, she surprised me by smiling. She reached into a briefcase I hadn't noticed before and pulled out a folder. She handed the small folder to me and I automatically flipped it open and scanned it.

Inside were three files, a picture clipped to each. I flipped through the papers and raised an eyebrow at Manx.

"You'll be joining an incomplete group called Weiss. No doubt you've heard of them."

Supposedly they were the best Kritiker had to offer, and the most shaded in secrecy. Even though Crashers worked closely with them, we knew only a little more than other Kritiker groups. I nodded.

"Can you leave tonight?"

I snapped the folder closed and handed it back to Manx, "Yes."

* * *

_ Fin Chapter 8_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I'm pissed that all these snow days are going out to the people under 18 while the rest of Marlyanders have to go to their goddamn jobs and classes…

I'm bitter…bitter like bitter nacho cheese chips…

Only adults should have snow days…

* * *

**To My Readers:**

**fullmetalguitar**Don't worry, he won't die… promise.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Notes: **There is this one song I've been avoiding on a rather good soundtrack. Mostly, the screaming freaks me out, it sounds like the singer is getting his fingernails ripped out. Then one day while I was drawing it came on, and I was too lazy to get up and change it. It wasn't loud, so I sat through it fine.

Then I discovered the last half of it is really very pretty. The screaming stops and the guy really starts singing. I was awesome. Now I can't get enough of it.

* * *

**9**

* * *

A door opens, doesn't completely click shut and I can hear someone scuffling with a light switch.

I didn't leave the door unlocked…someone broke in…

I can't move.

"Aya?" A hand is shaking me. "Aya?! Wake up!"

Shit. It's Yohji. Goddamn return address…why did I even put it on there? What kind of idiot puts a return address on a suicide note?

Idiot! Idiot!

Even so, it's kind of funny. I manage a soft chuckle even as Yohji shakes me. I force my eyes open and stare at the blurry image of my former teammate. I wish I had my glasses on, so maybe I could see his expression, his pretty green eyes…

"Oh, thank God," he gasps. He sounds like he's been running. I hope not for me. I thought he hated me…

"I'm calling an ambulance, right now."

Something tightens in my throat. He isn't trying to save me, he can't…

My hand snaps out and grabs his wrist. I fuzzily glare up at him.

"No hospitals," I whisper, my mouth stumbling over the syllables. I hate hospitals…I can't go there…

"This is your fuckup Aya, so shut up and sit back. You're going to a hospital and you're going to live even if it kills you."

I know he's worried because he isn't making any sense.

"I thought you hated me."

Yohji stops trying to dial the phone long enough to look at me, probably glaring.

"I just want the opportunity to kick your ass."

* * *

_Fin Chapter 9_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I like pecans.

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**Lexi: **I'm glad you're so excited! You shall not be disappointed! I hope…

**LL: **At first I was leaning that way, but then the pity side of my brain kicked in. No, it isn't going to die. But he'll come damn close. And yes, he is kind of messed up…then again, if you or I had gone through what he's gone through, how much better off would we be?


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Notes: **As wonderfully culturally opening a subject Anthropology is, the reading for tests is incredibly dry…

Need…water…

* * *

**10**

* * *

I had found a kind of fondness for Tokyo at night. It was never dark enough to see the stars, but the sheer amount of light in the city itself was enough to compensate, the thousands of black heads shining in the neon like moving stars themselves. I could see it all from the rooftops, my coat thick and warm around me, Shion's katana strapped to my back. I was waiting, biding time, but I really didn't know why. I was supposed to meet the rest of the crew here, but they were late.

Maybe Manx hadn't told them…

Again, trusting someone…I seethed at myself and cinched my bootlaces tighter so I could scramble from roof to roof along the line of the street to the small floral shop I recalled seeing in the folder from Manx's briefcase. They were staying here, I assumed, under the guise of florists.

Florists by day, killers by night. It was too lame to even be questioned, probably for that reason alone.

King…Pershia…whatever his name was, was such a sucker for the cliché. It was pathetic.

I crept about on the roof, trying to find an entrance when it appeared, as if out of nowhere, a door in the wall flung open by a young man bearing claws at me and growling. I backed away, startled. I'd never seen Tiger Claws in real life, only in books. The man looked almost feral.

"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded. I guessed he assumed the worst because he didn't let me answer. He as on me in a second and it was all I could manage to fend him off, to breathlessly duck his claws and block his blows. The others were at the door to see what the noise was about, weapons at the ready.

My katana was locked in my attacker's claws and I was back against a wall, glaring at them all.

I opened my mouth to explain myself, but on of the Tiger Claws got free and the next moment pain was flaring across my temple and my sight was gone. I sank to my knees and lost consciousness.

* * *

I opened my eyes to find a blonde man standing over me, smiling. He looked remarkably like Masako, while at the same time didn't. The resemblance made me frown and attempt to think, pain throbbed behind my eyes the moment I tried.

"Well, hello there, Ayaa," the man purred.

Aya? What?

"Or is that your girlfriend's name?" the man asked, moving around the bed to sit beside me, "You were calling her name just a minute ago. It was so touching."

I immediately wanted to kill him.

"My name's Kudoh Yohji."

I slowly sat up against the headboard and took the aspirin tablets he offered me, swallowing them dry. I shut my eyes and felt my head for any bumps, bleeding or other damage.

"You're the new kid, eh? Abyssinian?"

"Fujimiya…Aya…" I lied smoothly.

He blinked, then laughed. "Oh, ho…that's rich…"

I just glared at him.

* * *

The others were waiting downstairs when I felt ready to have a look around. I had wondered around the upstairs hallways but hadn't dared looking into any of the closed rooms out of fear of that manic with claws. When I had finally ventured downstairs in to where I smelled a kitchen, I froze at the sight of said manic, daintily picking up little octopus-shaped hot dogs and making them dance around a plate to amuse another boy there.

Bombay, my mind supplied, Bombay and Siberian. And the other from before, Yohji, was called Balinese.

Bombay looked up at me in the doorway and smiled as he motioned me in. Siberian saw me and sheepishly tried to smile, as if in apology, but I didn't look at him. One never looks a wolf or a tiger in the eye if they liked living.

"You gave us quite a scare last night," the boy said cheerfully. His voice grated on my nerves and the edge of my headache swelled.

"Yohji-kun said your name was Aya. Do you mind if we call you Aya too?"

I hadn't given any of them permission to call me anything…not that it mattered. I'd still answer to it…I'd always answered to Aya's name.

"I don't care."

Tiger Claws snorted something that sounded remarkably like 'prick' under his breath, but looked away when I glared at him. Bombay didn't seem to notice.

"You can call me Omi-kun, and that's Ken-kun."

"We like to call him Kenken," Yohji said, appearing out of nowhere. I hadn't even heard him. In fact, I hadn't heard any of them move. They were like cats…

Well duh, Ran…I repressed the urge to roll my eyes.

Yohji moved across the room to pour himself a cup of coffee. I found my eyes following him without my consent and ripped them away before he could notice. Omi was still talking, but I wasn't hearing any of it.

"You were really early. We hadn't been expecting to meet you for another two hours," Omi said.

"I was told you were to meet me at ten."

"Perhaps you were misinformed," Omi suggested.

I shrugged.

"Would you like some breakfast?"

"Coffee," I asked.

* * *

Life quickly became routine at the Koneko. Because I had no martial arts training scheduled, I trained by myself. Ken had offered to spar with me, but I refused. I was still unsure how to deal with his choice of weapons. Omi taught me all he knew to help run the shop, but he failed to warn me about…them…

Girls, from pubescent little worms to creeping hags with canes and deaf ears, would pack into the shop for hours at a time. To a sworn misogynist, it was hell, worse than any horror movie I watched. The giggling, the cooing, the soft flutter of hands that covered mouths as the whispered to one another about my ass when I walked by was almost enough to make me snap. Once or twice they touched me, just a brush of hand, and I had just barely kept from backhanding them. After the first few dangerous glares, the adventurous ones stopped testing me, content to watch at a distance, as if I too were a plant on display.

Besides, why bother with me when Yohji was happy to entertain them? As much as I hated them, he loved them and put on his best performance every day. He could've been an actor. Be it teenager or grandmother, Yohji played to their whims with a nimbleness like some kind of acrobat turned social butterfly.

That still didn't excuse him from smoking in the shop. Omi was always getting after him for something like that.

I didn't care. By then I was used to smokers and was just fine breathing second-hand nicotine. I didn't care that he put his feet on the kitchen table when he read the newspaper or that he left his porn in the tape player in the basement. What I cared about was that he insisted on picking the locked bathroom door so he could take a piss when I was trying to jerk off in the shower after yet another rough night's sleep.

Often Yohji would jokingly offer to take care of it for me. That was usually when I threatened to kill him and threw whatever was handy (soap, sponge, razor, etc.) at his head.

I cared that his bedroom was right next to mine, so whenever he played music too loud or brought some new conquest home, I could hear it as if they were on my bedroom floor, her screaming like some kind of banshee while he fucked her, grunting.

I was good at ignoring things; Omi's ever-joyous mood, Ken's sad attempts to befriend me, even Manx's goddamn skirt after a while, but Yohji refused to be ignored. He was blatant about everything, like a bright orange speck of bleach on a black silk kimono.

I fucking hated him. I hated him more than the people they sent me off to kill, almost more than Takatori.

They always say that you one you hate most is really the one you are destined to love. I don't know who this 'they' is, but I hope they're rolling in their graves.

Sick bastards…

* * *

I had slept in. It was Sunday and the shop was closed. We'd been up late on a mission the night before, so at nine in the morning, the house was silent. Ken had canceled soccer practice, Omi was off in the basement (probably surfing the internet for porn), and Yohji was snoring softly on the other side of my bedroom wall. I was in bed, watching the dappled sunlight pour through my window and shift on my wall-to-wall carpeted floor.

I decided I hated carpet. I decided I had to visit Aya-chan in the hospital that day, change her flowers, fix her hair, talk to her. Sometimes the nurse would paint her fingernails, and it amused me to see what whimsical color was presented on the tips of her fingers.

I was drowsing still, groggy from the Valium I had finally taken to sleep the night before. I had slept roughly even then, plagued by nightmares, and my bedclothes were tangled around my hips. Every once in a while I would shut my eyes and pictures would flash behind them.

My katana, Shion's katana, so clean and cold and beautiful, slicing cleanly through another man's head, my feet already moving to turn me around and defend my back.

Aya-chan's face, still sleeping, but bluish-white with death as the electric beep of her heart fell into a flat line.

Yohji's face, always smiling, always so empty, pressed against my lap as I lay on the sofa.

I shook myself awake, repressing a scream of outrage at my own mind. My hair, the red catching in the sunlight, fell into my eyes, stinging them. Even with them open I was seeing the dream, a fantasy, a cruelty from the gods sent to torment me. I glanced down at my lap and groaned.

Fucking libido, it did what it liked no matter my morals…I had better deal with it, then.

I got out of bed, my limbs stiff and sore from the workout the night before. For the first time I longed for one of my old boyfriends, for his hands that had soothed aching muscles after a long night in kendo practice. His fingers had been so precise on my skin…

I couldn't remember his name. For some reason, I could never remember my ex's names. I had a number of them, but I could only remember two of my lovers, for no real special reasons…

People just weren't special. They were there to be used and they used me. We used, we fought, we broke up, we forgot.

I slid into the shower and turned the water on as hot as it would go, my body screaming in protest. I could never stand cold showers, I didn't think they were worth catching a cold when my hand worked twice as fast and I could be warm at the same time. I pressed my head against the wall and sighed.

It was then that the door of the bathroom swung open, the lock efficiently picked, as per usual, and Yohji strolled in, his fly already unzipped.

Any other day, I could've ignored him, but not that morning, with my head still full of dreams…of him…

"Get. Out."

"No need to be hostile, Ayan, I'll just be a sec," Yohji said with a laugh.

I looked around the stall, trying to find anything I could use as a weapon to threaten him with and picked up the razor, quickly opening it and pulling out a blade. I slid the stall door open and held the edge of the razorblade to his throat, my eyes narrowed with fury.

"Out. Now. Or I'll kill you." My voice boded no question, and Yohji's eyes were wide, a little fearful. It was as if he suddenly realized he'd pushed me too many times and now it was my turn.

He gulped and laughed, grabbed my wrist and tried to push me away, into a wall. My skin prickled where he touched me. My back against a wall, him pressing against my chest with one wide hand, he stood over me, eyes hard as jade. My razorblade had been lost in the scuffle and the wire in his watch was wrapped around my neck.

I was breathless, because of the fight and because he was so close to me. I could smell his morning breath and it was like incense to me. I could see his morning stubble and found it pleasing. I could see the salt of sleep in the corners of his eyes and I wanted to wipe it away for him.

He looked down at me, meeting my eyes as if he was searching for something, and then looked down.

A second later, his eyes held mine again, a smirk wide on his face.

"I could take care of that for you…" he laughed.

* * *

I was regretting my decisions already, wondering what I was thinking.

Oh yeah…I wasn't thinking…

Yohji was asleep again, the cigarette in his fingers still burning. I picked it out and put the filter to my lips, taking a curious drag. I coughed, once, twice, and blew the smoke out, stubbed the cigarette out viciously.

Well, if I hadn't been thinking then, there wasn't much point of it now. Why bother? If we got caught, who cared? He didn't matter to me; he was just another fuck, like boys I picked up in bars, in clubs, the stupid bimbos with see-through shirts and innocently-shining eyes.

Really, it was just another hole, just another warm body to press against if I felt lonely.

I didn't press against Yohji, but slept on my side of the bed, a side I had designated as my own a week or two ago, away from his warmth, his life. On my side of the bed, on a nightstand, next to the lamp, was a picture of a woman he had once said was named Asuka. He said she was dead. That was it; he never said anything more on the matter. I suppose he expected me to tell him about my dead loved-ones. I didn't. He looked at the pictures in my room, but I never answered his questions. No reason to, really, we weren't lovers.

We didn't love one another. We just fucked.

* * *

Over the months, we kept silent about being bed partners. Omi might have suspected, but he never said. Ken could've been smacked in the head with it and he wouldn't have noticed. He was that dense. Must've been nice, living in his world…

Yohji slept around, brought home women and flirted with everything in the shop, man, woman or plant. Occasionally I would slip off to a bar, have a few drinks, and wake up in a hotel bed with some hideous sequin queen beside me. I usually slipped out before the boy woke. When we couldn't find dates, or it was the night after a mission, Yohji and I would slip off together and forget our lives, blood still sprayed on our faces.

Sometimes we drank as he talked or we watched horror flicks, the both of us quietly snickering as people got picked off by the psycho killer. After we might fight, or fuck, or just fall asleep against one another on the couch. It never mattered; we were close as friends, though we weren't. I never let him close to my heart, and he rarely, if ever, bothered trying.

Until the day after New Year's. I was packing my new kimono up for next year when Yohji came in, eyes full of some expression I couldn't read.

"Biggest night of the year and you're not out chasing girls?" I murmured as good-naturedly as I could as I slid the cover onto the box and shoved it all in the back of my closet.

"Figured I wanted something with fangs tonight," Yohji said with a smile. He locked the door to my room and I sighed. I had been looking forward to some late-night tea, but now I could forget about it. No matter…

"I…have to talk to you about something…" he continued. I frowned. Nothing good ever started like that…

I motioned to the bed, offering him a seat, and waited. He looked like a boy who had broken a vase and discovered just how much trouble he was in.

"I think…I think I'm in love with you."

I couldn't help myself. I laughed bitterly.

It was the funniest thing I'd heard in a long time. Yohji looked pissed.

"I'm serious!"

"I'm sure you are. Doesn't make it any less funny," I said through a snort. I half-covered my mouth with my hand. Yohji punched his thigh with his fist, his eyes narrowed with rising fury.

"Don't be a prick, I'm pouring my heart out to you…and you don't care?"

I sighed, a smile still on my mouth, as sour as a smile could ever be. My eyes were dead, they had been for years. I watched as Yohji slowly figured that no only did I not return his feelings, but that I simply couldn't. It was impossible.

I didn't love. I had taught myself not to, just as I had taught myself to cook, to fight, to keep secrets.

He looked heartbroken. He got up to leave, but I stood in his way.

"Aya…I'm sorry…that was foolish of me…"

"Yohji, sit down," I ordered softly, waiting for him to obey before continuing, "No, I don't return your feelings, and I don't particularly care of you love or hate me. But…if you think that this is going to, in any way, change how things are between us, you're correct. I suppose you'll be looking only to me to suit your needs, yes?"

He nodded, a little guiltily. I was all business and I think it made him uncomfortable.

"Then in respect, I should do the same. I refuse to move into your room or have you move into mine, nor should we tell Omi or Ken."

This got me a 'no, duh' look. If we lived full time around one another, we'd drive each other crazy. We were simply too different not to fight. Omi and Ken…well, that was obvious.

"Then fine," I said with a shrug, and leaned in to press my lips to his forehead, "Happy New Year."

"You give a man one hell of a weird relationship, Aya," Yohji muttered.

"I'm weird…it's expected."

* * *

_Fin Chapter 10_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **19, white female. Five feet and three inches and one hundred and twelve pounds. Likes 'quests' instead of 'walks', getting lost in public places, southern sweet tea and Japanese green tea, movies where the protagonist is either insane or dies, books, politics, philosophy and just about any other intellectual thing one can argue about with some semblance of intelligence.

Also likes reptiles, dogs, birds, cats, and rodents. Fish are food. Spiders are fish bait.

* * *

**To My Readers:**

**Lexi: **Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying this.

**HeeroDuo4eva**Yes, Ran's got it rough…(hugs Ran plushy) Thank you.

**evalita**The chapters are set up the way they are to differentiate between memory and present. Thanks, though.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes: **

Current music: Squirrel Nut Zippers "Low Down Man".

Current mood: Relief. I just finished a seven page paper for English class due tomorrow.

Current Weather: Snowing? Maybe I'll get out of class? Probably not…

Current food: Pancakes and bacon-flavored tea.

Current conversation: Asking a friend if he tilted his head back and swallows when he gets a bloody nose or not.

Current clothing: Amsterdam tee and army-patterned boy pajama pants, bra and lovely devil-red underwear.

Current thought: I love my dog. He's so curly!

* * *

**11**

* * *

Somewhere in the back of my head I knew I wasn't dead, but I wished with my every fiber of my being that I was.

I was tied to a stretcher, something like leather biting into my wrists, my ankles, my forehead. Someone was touching me and my skin crawled in an offhanded kind of way.

They were sticking a tube down my throat, telling me to open my mouth.

Fuck you, no. Why should I? I did this to myself intentionally. What makes you think I'm going to let you force me to live?

I think I bit someone…they were cursing and a metallic flavor spread over my tongue, exactly the same moment the tube went down. Someone flipped a switch and I felt like they were trying to suck me inside out. It hurt, like some kind of extended vomit…My throat burned, my nose burned, my intestines burned…

More hands and a needle was thrust into the back of my hand, an IV I suppose. Someone was sticking electrodes to my chest and all of a sudden I could hear my heartbeat in on some electric device. It was so slow…

"Don't worry, you're okay now," someone kept saying, yelling right into my ear as if I couldn't hear them…

Why would I want to be okay? I did this to myself…

And slowly, my world turned black, turned silent, and I stopped thinking…Who cared? Nothing mattered…

Nothing ever mattered…

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I don't know if I've explained this or not, but people seem to be a bid confused. There is a reason why the chapters vary between past and present and length. The length of them (while it shouldn't matter, but understandably does) does, in fact, have a lot to do with the time in which Ran/Aya is speaking. The longer chapters are past, and the shorter ones are present. There reason the present ones are so short is because the scenes depicted are really quite short and I can't waste them. The reason they are in-betweens is mostly to easily break up the memories.

Happy now? Stop asking me questions about this or complaining about it.

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**HeeroDuo4eva: **Doesn't want to, or can't? Which would you consider more depressing? It's a real question. Personally, I'll go with can't, on an ethical, self-protective basis…

But that's just me.

Thanks for the review!

* * *

**fullmetalguitar**: Hey! Good to hear from you again! (hugs)

No, I don't suppose it would be Aya if he wasn't badass…sexy badass…(swoon) Him and Farfarello both…and I'm learning to like Crawford…

But don't you wonder why that boy's on the internet all the time? Teenage boy. Computer. Internet.

He sure ain't looking up ways to dress up Barbie…maybe discount shorts on ebay…

Yes, the past is fun…it's all speculation…just like (No! Mustn't go below public school system's belt…mustn't go below public school system's belt…)…history class…

(snicker) To the victor goes the 'correct' historical representation…(oh, I feel so evil in my devil panties…)


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's notes: **I am in anthropology class. We're watching a movie about art and stuff. I've been zonked out of my head with work and school and schoolwork all week, and since I finally got some decent sleep and a lot of time on my hands (not including the class I am not participating in as of this moment), so I figured I'd post this.

My teacher just claimed the 'torture is a form of art' and now he's supporting it with actual documents…Interesting and disgusting at once.

* * *

**12**

* * *

So we became lovers in a sense, Yohji and I. We rarely slept alone more than once a week. When we did, it was after a fight over sometime minute and unimportant, like who stole the remote, or why I kept kicking his ass at video games (I didn't cheat, whatever he told you, he just sucks). Omi and Ken, well, as usual, were wrapped up in their own lives and never noticed. We were thankful for that much.

Manx knew, though. Women like her had this kind of sense about gay people, had the kind of ability to smell it or something. Less than three days after Yohji had professed his undying love to me, she saw me watching him during a mission briefing, and then took me aside after the folders had been passed out.

"Are you and Balinese…?" she asked…she almost sounded excited, though I didn't know what for.

My reply was silence. I didn't know where the information might've gone, to either Persia or just to her girlfriends, but I didn't care take that chance.

She figured it out anyway…

"Well, I'm happy for you," she said, as if she really meant it, "But don't let it get in the way of your missions."

Of course, telling anyone this automatically makes them want to fool around while lying in wait for a hit to arrive. The idea of ravishing Yohji on a rooftop somewhere did have slight appeal…but so did dangling him off said roof…

So I was capricious, Yohji couldn't say he didn't like it. He liked to fight as much as fuck, and to be honest, so did I. Screaming at him was wonderfully fulfilling…

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I murmured grouchily, and left.

* * *

This was new, Yohji mad at me for a real reason…

I wasn't listening, I was trying to read a book. It was so obvious, really; me, curled on a couch under a light, book in my lap, glasses pointed at said book…

I ground my teeth. I couldn't read a damn word with him ranting at me like a dog who pissed on the carpet.

I slowly shut my book and set it aside, then looked up at him.

"Exactly what have I done now?" I asked, my voice only slightly revealing my annoyance. For a brief second I had caught him off guard and he fell silent. Had he not expected me to listen to him?

Didn't matter, because after that skipped beat, he picked right up where he had left off.

Sort of…

"I'll tell you what you've done, you bastard! You went off on a mission without any backup! You didn't even tell us! What the fuck is your problem, Aya? You could've gotten yourself killed!"

Ah yes…the independent mission Manx had sent me a day or two back…He was mad because I went on a virtually unimportant and far from dangerous mission? So they guy had a gun, but he was alone in a dark alley, and how I could turn it down?

It was a million yen…

I had bills…

I sighed and picked my book up again, but Yohji snatched it from my fingers.

"Hey!"

"No! Listen to me! You really scared us! What were you thinking, Aya?!"

"I'm thinking that you might have a broken nose if you don't give me my books back, Kudoh." I called him this when I was angry with him.

He threw the book over his shoulder and I snapped to my feet, fists already clenched at my sides.

"Why did you go on the mission and not tell me? If you had been injured and needed help, we couldn't have gotten to you!"

"I wouldn't be injured, Yohji, I'm not stupid," I snapped, finally angry now…it was a good book.

"AYA!"

"What?!"

He sighed and half-deflated…as if I'd stick him with a pin…

It was…unusual…

By now he wouldn't blown up completely and started trying to wring my neck…

"Sometimes…sometimes I feel as if I don't even know you…When you do these things…I don't know what you're thinking…I was worried…"

Fucking girl trick…dirty bastard. Now I was feeling guilty.

I drew myself up anyway, my face molded as grim as I could get it with it still being red from anger.

"You don't know me. Don't presume you do."

Youji's green eyes, such pretty eyes, looked up at me, sad and angry and filled with such confliction that it twisted even my heart. He raised a hand, slowly, and slapped me on the face, only half-assed and it didn't hurt.

I was still shocked. I didn't say anything as I watched him turn and leave, heard him slam the door behind him.

I sat down again, my warm spot on the sofa gone now; my cheek burning in what I was sure was an obvious handprint…

Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I felt slightly ill…

* * *

For days after the slap, Yohji wouldn't speak to me. Not to say I hadn't tried, I had, but he avoided me as surely as he avoided washing the dishes after dinner month after month. Evasion was an art form to him, and he was showing me all his skills.

But I have always been a persistent kind of asshole.

I caught him in the back room, absently arranging a deplorable-looking funeral bouquet. There was no one else there, so I stepped inside and locked the door behind me.

I was not one to give up on opportunities when they laid down at me feet and kissed my shoes.

He heard the door lock and looked up, the frowned at me and turned back to his arranging.

"Pink is not exactly the color flower people want to see at a funeral, Yohji," I murmured as a kind of opening, off-handedly wishing he'd speak to me again…

Something in me had missed his voice.

His fingers found the one pink carnation in the center of the arrangement and jerked it out, threw it on the floor where his foot crushed it. He looked at up at me, face contorted with anger.

Nope, he hadn't cooled down at all…damn…

"What the fuck do you want, Aya?" he asked, voice like acid.

"To explain?" I offered, then followed quickly with, "I didn't really have a chance to do it…about the mission…"

"Thought it was none of my business," Yohji muttered, turning back to the pile of flowers at his side and picking throw them for the best.

"Well, it isn't," I snapped, "But you're going to get one anyway, since you demanded one."

"I'm so flattered…"

"Shut up and listen, Kudoh…"

He looked up at me, mouth set in a thin, irritated line.

I felt lower than a hit…at least he smirked at hits…

"I…have bills to pay…" I began, unsure how to go about this. I had made a whole speech up in my mind just an hour before, but when I actually confronted Yohji, it had flown out of my head.

"So we all do, it's called life."

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" I snarled again, "You're not making this easy, you bastard, not that you deserve to know…"

He just looked at me, waiting.

"I…" I lost my voice…

At least I'd been expecting that, in a fatalistic way. I reached into my apron pocket and pulled out a picture of my sister, some horrible Polaroid they had sent me right after she'd gotten into the hospital…her hair was shorter then, bruises still bright on her pale, sleeping face.

"Her name is Aya. She's my sister," I said, keeping my sentences short so I didn't trip over them, "She's in a coma. She's been this way for three years. I pay for her."

Yohji's face went from angry to pitying in six seconds flat…I know, I counted.

I could've better dealt with his anger, but…but…

It was the first time I had explained myself to anyone since the accident, since joining this whole horrible life or mine…

I can't say it felt great, if anything I felt worse, but…there was a lightness that settled over my shoulders, like a very thin scarf…maybe relief, maybe reality finally coming to me after I'd finally admitted to it, in spoken word.

"I'm-" Shit, he was going to apologize. I had to stop him, quick.

"Don't." A cupped my palm over his mouth before he could continue. "I don't need it."

Maybe I did…

"I…I didn't know…why didn't you tell me?"

"Like I said, originally, it wasn't your business. You didn't need to know. Aya's my problem…Like you Asuka nightmares…"

He shut his mouth, thinking, then sighed.

"Well, I know now…"

No, duh…

"Thank you…for telling me."

He pulled me against him, his arms strong around my frame. I fought briefly and only for the credit of fighting him. I didn't mean it. I didn't want to leave his hold.

It was warm, comfortable…

"But…if she's Aya…you're?"

"Ran. My name is Ran. And if you ever call me that I'll rip your throat out through your nostrils."

He laughed. "I'm sure you would. Do you think you could help me with this arrangement? You're better at them then I am."

And like that, he knew about Aya and most of our big fights stopped…

A week later, Takatori was our target.

* * *

The fighting our way in, fighting Swartz, fighting Takatori and fighting our way out of the sea were all I remembered. After years of planning, I had little to say to the man who had murdered my parents, who had thrust my sister into a coma for nearly four years, who had subsequently ruined my entire life and the lives of my teammates.

But it was I who gave him the final blow. I was the one who finally ended his wicked life.

I felt nothing, just a kind of loss. My purpose was gone completely, then. Aya had awoken somehow, but I didn't get to her.

I had been thrown into the sea, falling into the stormy, crashing black, my head slamming into a huge piece of fallen concrete as I landed and sank. Dazed, I floated down, let the tide take me away.

I was content. This was a good death, I thought. Takatori was dead, Aya-chan was awake, and I had enough life insurance to keep her living well for probably the rest of her life. I was already breathing water.

Yohji was the one who went after me. After falling from whatever height and diving into the water without hitting the rocks or debris, he swam after me, caught my arm and dragged me up, up, and to the shore. He pumped the water from my lungs, checked my head for bleeding and kept me awake while Omi whimpered into a telephone for an ambulance, Ken knocked out beside him.

I had a concussion, but not a bad enough one to keep me in the hospital for long. Aya-chan hadn't found me, probably thought I was dead. Just as well. It was better off that way. Being around me could ruin whatever life she got back…

I wasn't about to do that to her a second time…

As soon as I was free of the hospital, I went back to the Koneko and packed my things. My contract with Kritiker was met. I had killed Takatori and they had cared for my sister. Since she was awake, I had no further use of their hospital faculties and I decided that it was best I start a new life, get away from all of this murder and death and blood…

I wanted to be Ran again, wanted to be myself.

Yohji was at my door the night before I left, just waiting while I packed, silent, a little bruised up from the tower battle…

He was smoking in my room. I didn't care. It wasn't really my room anymore.

I passed him all the CDs and books he'd lent me and finished stuffing my things into a sack. I'd put it in my car later, but at that moment I just wanted to sit down, breathe…

"Don't go," Yohji said, his voice so soft I wasn't sure if it was his at all, or if I had imagined it.

I looked up at him as he stepped inside and sat down on my bed next to me.

"My sister is awake, Takatori's dead, why stay?" I asked flatly, looked down at my hands.

Sometimes, if I looked hard enough, I could still see Shion's blood on them…

"Stay for us? For Omi and Ken and me? We'll miss you. I'll miss you…"

"Don't be so sentimental. I left my cell phone number."

"Aya…"

Aya…? No…not anymore…

Aya's dead…Ran lives again…well…zombie Ran perhaps…

"Yohji, I've already put my resignation in to Manx. They want me out by morning. You'll get a new teammate in a few weeks and it'll be like I wasn't here at all. And if you still fancy dinner or something later, you have my number. That's it. I'm going."

I got to my feet and Yohji glowered at me.

"God, you're such a heartless bastard, even now…I mean, you got your sister back!"

"And now I have no purpose in life as what I am! I did the Aya thing, killed and sat and rolled over for fucking Persia, who is, quite thankfully, dead!" I shouted, surprised at myself. I wasn't angry, though…I didn't think I was, "Don't you see I want to go back to being myself for once? I can't even talk to Aya without endangering her, but if I could just go back…to something that isn't covered in blood, maybe I could go do something useful with myself! All this revenge…"

It dirtied me…I wanted to be clean again…

I wanted my innocence again…

I wanted to be able to cry on someone's shoulder and not worry about my image. I wanted to take a shower and not worry about bits of other people's flesh caught in the drainpipe. I wanted to look at a boyfriend as a boyfriend and not a teammate, a potential enemy, a victim…

I just wanted to feel human again…was that so much to ask when I finally had the opportunity?

Yohji sighed and got up, took one last drag on his cigarette and jammed it out on an ashtray someone had left on my nightstand.

Probably him…

"Fine…go," he said, sounding tired, "Go live your life…you earned it. I won't be calling…"

And he left.

I felt as if he'd punched me.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 12_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Movies mentioned in class: Saw 1, 2, and 3, Last King of Scotland, and Hostel. 

I haven't seen any of those. I have a weak stomach for gore unless it's in written form…

* * *

**To my readers: **

**fullmetalguitar** Thank you.

And Farfarello IS that awesome.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Notes: **I just finished watching 'Marie Antoinette'. Such a good movie, that one, and turned me a bit girly. For some reason I want to go shopping…go figure.

I'm sorry about the site not updating the alert…stupid ff . net

* * *

**13**

* * *

I was in and out of sleep and drugs and whatever else they'd put into my bloodstream for what seemed like a lifetime. It probably wasn't, but when I woke up, I felt as if I was eighty years old. My limbs were so heavy I could barely lift them. 

Well, I hadn't been asleep long enough for them to atrophy…thank kami.

Atrophy was a bitch.

So was therapy…

I sighed and looked around my room. It was a typical hospital room, maybe intensive care, maybe the terminal section…all parts of hospitals looked the same to me. The same white wallpaper, the same linoleum floor, the same nurse. There was another bed, the curtain was halfway pulled so that only the blanket-covered feet showed. Whoever it was beside me, he or she wasn't hooked up to any machines, not even an IV.

I slowly turned my head and took in the sight of television, door, window, bathroom. I realized what they'd stuck into me, how many embarrassments, how many needles and electrodes were spouting perfectly private information about myself for their disposal.

What annoyed me most was the cather and the feeding tube down my throat…

I couldn't get either off, though. I was somehow weak. I was afraid that if I pulled the feeding tube out, I could pull the rest of my throat out with it…

Actually…that wasn't a bad idea…

I yanked at the tube and something beeped at me. I quickly looked around and saw that I was laying on the call button for the nurse.

Shit.

The feet in the other bed moved, a slightly familiar groan emerging from behind the curtain as the nurse popped her head in. I feinted sleep.

"Mr. Kudoh? Did you call me?" the nurse said, her head directed at the bed behind the curtain.

My skin was alive in a second. Yohji?!

Something ridiculous in me danced at the idea that Yohji would still be here, waiting for me to come back to life…

Sheets shifted and I could hear Yohji's footsteps as he got out of bed and moved toward mine, his bones cracking as he stretched awake.

"Ah, no. But could you maybe bring me some coffee?" he asked, any impish charm I knew gone, his voice was slow, burry, tired. It was a morning voice I woke up to when I was in Weiss…

"I'll check and see if he's laying on the call button, k?"

The nurse laughed softly, "Sure. Just a minute."

A hand, Yohji's, felt around my side, groping for the call button I had indeed been lying on and pulled it out from under my butt. He set it by my limp hand and I heard him slip into a chair with a sigh, the rustle of his hair against his face.

I could smell him…It was a welcome smell after six months of not having it.

I realized I had missed him more than I originally thought.

"Jeezus, Aya…" he whispered, half at me and half at himself. His fingers brushed my hair off my forehead, down my cheek.

I slowly opened my eyes. No point in faking anymore. I didn't want any unwarranted confessions, nor to hear him talk at me the desperate way I had once talked to my sister when she was sleeping for so long…

His eyes were so fuzzy and I realized my glasses and contacts were gone. If I squinted I could make out the details of his face. My sight wasn't that bad…

He looked surprised; as if he hadn't expected me to wake…then he smiled.

"Aya?" He looked so damn happy… "Thank god, Aya!"

I think he got up to call the nurse, but I was too zonked out to really know.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 13_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I've also 'discovered' Artic Monkeys. Yet another wonderful band to add to my collection of favorites…(dreamy smile)

Midterms? What midterms? My brain shut off last week and I'm already in Spring Break in my mind…ah, imagination is a wonderful thing, however distracting…

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**903: **Thanks!

**CaT70: **No, I can't imagine they are…It's still makes for good reading, I think. They amuse me with their antagonistic relationship…

Ugh…gore…(shudders)

**HeeroDuo4eva**Good to hear form you again! I'm glad you're enjoying this fanfiction!


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Notes: **After a long, wonderfully restful Spring Break, school begins tomorrow. I suppose that after a week of hanging out as much as I could with my friend (who were back from their various colleges) and lazing about the house while my mother was away, I'd be sick of it and ready to go back, ne?

Sorry, school just isn't that much fun. That and my mother is supposed to be here a whole month this time…Ugh, can't she move down south and leave me alone? (sigh)

Here, more angsting Aya.

* * *

**14**

* * *

Six months of working two jobs, one as a waiter and another as a mechanic in two rent-a-holes not a block away from one another.

It was nice, not having to walk halfway across the city to be where I needed to be, even if the jobs paid a pittance and my apartment took most of that pittance before it even went into my pocket. Food was what I could steal from the restaurant and my car was being kept by Yuushi from Crashers, since I hadn't the heart to sell it…yet.

I loved that car, but it was still a tie to Weiss…some day I had to get rid of it. I needed the money anyway.

I got six months before I started missing them. I think until I had settled into a routine I was putting my attention into something else, and that's why it took so long.

Missing Aya was pretty much like when she was in the hospital, except I didn't get to visit anymore, just watch her walk to and from school whenever the bus I was riding passed. At least I got to see her, even if it was a glimpse. I never saw Yohji, Omi or Ken and I never saw anyone from Crashers.

I…missed them. I missed them all.

But I missed Yohji the most.

Whenever I thought about him, whenever I tried to dial his phone number, I would always hang up before he picked up…I really had nothing to say…everything to say.

I felt so mundane, so replaceable, maybe because the sense of constant danger was no longer there. I didn't have to check behind doors when I got home at night, nor keep my katana where I could get it easily for use. It was boring, really.

My jobs were boring. My apartment was boring. Even my food was boring.

The flavor of life had ceased to be.

I tried to pick up boys in bars when I had the time, even piddled about with a boyfriend for a week or two, but it was worthless. I put no heart into the brief relationships and they could sense it.

I missed my life. I felt as if this was a vicious vacation I had forced upon myself.

I…I loved Yohji. I loved his eyes and his hair and his skin and his smile…I missed the comfort seeing those eyes glance at me when I walked in and took off my shoes.

I regretted leaving.

Of course, I couldn't deal with having killed. The nightmares and daydreams of those horrible memories popped up whenever it was most inconvenient. I lost sleep and lost weight. I grew paler, my face turning a kind of gray that my bosses noticed. My co-workers, faceless peers, commented on it, told me I should take better care of myself.

Why? I asked.

What was the point? We all die someday.

I knew this better than any of them. I knew how easy it was to die.

I wanted to stop breathing…

I convinced myself that Yohji hated me, and that was why he let me go so easily. He hated me for not loving him and to try explaining anything I felt in return would be a waste of breath. He would've moved on, picked up some cute little girl-thing to fuck.

I convinced myself that I was one of those faceless ones, and that I had no one to make me stand out. I had no witnesses, no one to tell me I wasn't crazy for thinking I existed.

I didn't have my family or my friends or my former lovers. My sister had forgotten me, I believed, and anyone who knew I was alive hated me.

Why live?

Why?

Six months of listening to myself, living in monk-like silence, and I sat down to write three letters: One to Yohji, which was brief, to the point and sent first. I told him all I felt, gave him my apologies and asked him to watch my sister for me.

The other two I kept on my nightstand for whoever found me after I was dead. They would be sent later, I guessed, to those addressed.

I charmed a boy behind a pharmacy counter into giving me a bottle of Valium. I wanted as much as I could get to make this right, final.

It was Friday night when I decided I would die. I had liked Fridays, the sheer bliss of a weekend lying out before me as I closed down shop was beyond most that I knew when I was with Weiss. Friday nights would find me spending time with Yohji, talking with him over bowls of winter soup or watching movies or driving in his hideous car.

I changed into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt, though my apartment was freezing since I had the air conditioner on full blast. The hair on my arms prickled as I moved to my bathroom and pulled down the bottle of Valium, as I poured a glass of water.

I stared at myself in the mirror, at my dark, haunted eyes. I had removed my contacts, and my face was a little fuzzy, but I could still make out the flash of red hair, two dots of purple, the grey-white color of my skin. I already looked like the living dead.

My body ached, and had been for some time. It was a bone-deep kind of aching, the kind one gets during a flu, the kind that makes you so tired you could sleep for days and just let people take care of you, even though you usually wouldn't.

Well, I was alone now…no one to take care of me. I had once thought I wanted this.

I knew better now.

And I was going to sleep forever.

One little pill on my tongue, one swallow of water, and I set my timer.

I remember… It didn't start like this right away…

I remember…Osaka…The smell of cherry blossoms…

I remember…My mother, my father, my sister…The explosion, my life in a shambles…

I remember…Crashers…Letting them pull me back together through turmoil…

I remember…Murder…Blood on my hands…Scrambling gracelessly over rooftops…

I remember…Yohji…

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_Fin chapter 14_

_Please Review_

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**Author's Notes: **I have a craving for sugar cookies, hot tea and an Escaflowne fest…

I'm such an otaku…--

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**To My Readers:**

**HeeroDuo4eva**: Nope, no one will be permanently injured, I promise (smiles) thought it would make for interesting writing…

**fullmetalguitar**: Wrong? Probably not. A little sadistic? Perhaps…But then, who am I to talk? I write this stuff. (laughs)

And yes, Artic Monkey's are love...

**CaT70: **

**1. **No, sorry, they won't be havin' hospital smex. I really didn't want to, as entertaining as it would've been. Really, though, they have issues to resolve before they jump in bed together…;;

**2. **Coming to America? Cool beans! I'm glad you like them!


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Notes: **Final chapter.

And no, there is no hospital sex. I already went through this; the two have a lot of issues to work out first. Also, I feel uncomfortable writing stuff like that in my classes…

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**15**

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It brings me up to now.

They say that before you die, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes. They say it takes only a second or two, and that it is mostly stimulants flashing in your brain…

How the fuck would they know?

It's kind of like telling people there is a heaven out there…as if they came back from it…

I think someone lied…I want to gut them…

Them and every goddamn doctor in this hospital…

Kami, I hate doctors…

"Aya? You with me?" Yohji's voice broke my thoughts, and I heard a slight tremble in its comfortable burr. He had his chopsticks point down in a bowl of rice, the same shit he'd been forcing down my throat since they took the feeding tube out a week ago. I had been swearing up and down until Yohji finally agreed it was for the best they remove it.

I shook my head a little to clear my thoughts and sighed, wishing I was strong enough to feed myself. It was embarrassing.

Thank the gods he hadn't told Omi or Ken…yet…

They'd be on me in a second; so would Aya.

"Yeah. Are you going to fucking feed me or what, Kudoh?" I snapped, just to keep up appearances.

He chuckled a little and shoved a clump of rice in my mouth. I chewed obediently, glaring at him through my glasses. He'd brought them for me from my apartment…such a nice guy…

"The nurse said you were in a right mood," he murmured thoughtfully, popping the lid off a bowl of soup…miso by the smell of it…

My mouth watered and I briefly hoped that this was Omi's homemade soup. Omi made the best miso…

"I hate hospitals. When are they letting me out of this place?"

"Soon as they decide you aren't still suicidal. You remember those therapists you sent off? That temper of yours is keeping you here even longer."

"I lie, I don't lie, but either way I'm still going to jump off a roof next chance I get," I growled, swallowing a mouthful of warm, wonderful soup.

Yohji just laughed. "Well, I'll have to keep an eye on you then. Maybe even two if I can spare it."

"Probably best that you do. Between your visits and Yuushi's ranting at me, I think sometimes I'll go stark raving mad," I said, finally cracking a very small smile, just for him. The way he smiled back was worth it, totally worth it. It made my stomach thrill just at the sight of his smile…I was so pathetic…

"Shall I tell Ken and Omi where I've been off to instead of working then?"

I thought a moment, then shook my head.

"It'd be best if you didn't. They'd be worse than Yuushi's screaming…"

"Oh? Does he scream at you?" Yohji asked, faking a British accent in fun. It was really very good, very like Yuushi's…

"Stay a while and you can see for yourself."

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Freedom never felt so good.

Not even from the seat of a wheelchair as they rolled me out. It was hospital policy, but damned bothersome. After being on my feet for the past week, it was difficult to stay put and walk out as I was.

I had a clean bill of health, whatever that meant. I wasn't suicidal, according to their standards, and they wouldn't keep me for further observation.

Yohji was signing me out when I got out of the wheelchair and walked outside, my jeans and sweater brought from home whipping in the wind, my shoes clenched in my fingers as my bare feet tested safe walking across the asphalt parking lot. I was enjoying the breeze in my hair, the smell of sunlight that poured over my face.

Well, at least it wasn't raining…

I wasn't entirely grateful to be alive. I didn't even think about it.

All I thought about was Yohji's arm around my waist as he led me to his car, the press of his side against mine. All I thought about was letting him drive me home and staying with me until I packed my things and promised I'd move in with him.

Might as well…I already knew I couldn't survive without him.

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**Author's Notes:** And that's the end. Now I can finish my celery in peace.

And do my homework…and my essays…and my exams…and my job…college is fucking depressing…

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**To My Readers: **

**dimonyo-anghel**: Hey, that's a really good quote, and very accurate for this fic. Cool! Thank you for your wonderful review.

**CaT70: **I'm not in Japan, I'm in Washington, D.C. Here the term Otaku is a kind of offshoot of geeks, kind of like gamers and techies and this like. Seeing as you watch Weiss and, I'm assuming, are from a Western culture, you'd probably already know that. But thanks.

And no, the sex would ruin the whole story. Not to mention the fact the it's entirely inappropriate.


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